J U 9

THE

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,

FROM THEIR COMMENCEMENT, IN 1665, TO THE YEAR 1800;

afititrfietr.

WITH NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS,

BY

CHARLES HUTTON, LL.D. F.R.S.
GEORGE SHAW, M.D. F R.S. F.L.S.
RICHARD PEARSON, M.D. F.S.A.

VOL. II.

FROM 1672 TO 1683.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY AND FOR C. AND R. BALDWIN^ NEW BRIDGE-STREET, BLAC&FRIARS.

1809.

/4^^3 L,

LOAN STACK

THE

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS

OF TBE

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON;

ABRIDGED.

Extract of a Letter of M. Huygens, to the jiuthor of the Journal des Savans,
of July 25, 1672, attempting to explain the Cause of that odd Phenomenon
of the Quicksilver s remaining suspended far above the usual Height in the
Torricellian Experiment. N° 86, p. 5027-

A HE Experiment is briefly this : that a tube, being after the Torricellian
way, filled with mercury, and before inversion perfectly purged of air, does,
when inverted, remain top full, even to the height of 75 inches.

M. Huygens, as a probable cause of this strange effect conceives, that besides
the pressure of the air, which keeps the mercury suspended at the height of
about 27 * inches, and of the truth of which w^e are convinced by a great number
of other effects ; there is yet another pressure stronger than that, of a more
subtle matter than air, which without difficulty penetrates glass, water, quick-
sih^er, and all other bodies which we find impenetrable to air. This pressure,
he says, being added to that of the air, is capable of sustaining the 75 inches of
mercury, and possibly more, as long as it works only against the lower surface,
or against that of the mercury, in which stands the open end of the tube : but as
soon as it can work also on the other side, (which happens when striking against
the tube, or intromitting into it a small bubble of air, you give way to this
matter to begin to act) the pressure of it becomes equal on both sides, so that
there is no more but the pressure of the air, which sustains the mercury at the
ordinary height of 27 inches.

If you ask why the quicksilver in the tube of this experiment does not feel
the pressure of this matter, even whilst that vessel is yet full ; since M. Huy-
gens supposes, that it pierces without difficulty the glass as well as the mercurv
&c ? and why the particles of this matter do not join together and begin the

* French measure, or nearly 29 inches English measure.
VOL. II. B

r r '7 O

a PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

pressure, as they go and come through the whole extent of the mercury, and
that the glass does not hinder their communication with those that are without.

To remove this difficulty, which in M. Huygens's own opinion is very great,
he answers, that though the parts of the matter, by him supposed, do find pas-
sage between those that compose the glass, quicksilver, &c; yet they there find
not sufficiently large ones for many to pass together, nor to move there with
that force which is requisite to separate the parts of the quicksilver, that have
some connexion together. And this very same connexion, he says, is the cause, ~
that though on the side of the inner surface of the glass, which touches the sus-
pended mercury, many of its parts be pressed by the particles of this matter ;
yet there being also a great number of them that feel no pressure by reason of
the parts of the glass, behind which they are placed ; they retain one another,
and remain all suspended, because there is much less pressure on the surface of
the quicksilver that is contiguous to the glass, than upon that below, which is
all exposed to the action of that matter which makes this second pressure.

The ingenious and candid author of this solution acknowledges himself, that it
does not so fully satisfy him as not to leave some scruple behind ; but then he
adds, that that keeps him not from being very well assured of that new pressure^
which he has supposed besides that of the air, by reason as well of the experi-
ment already alleged, as of two others, which he subjoins, to this effect : —

First, When two plates of metal or marble, whose surfaces are perfectly plain,
are put one upon another, they do so stick together, that the uppermost being
lifted up, the undermost follows without quitting it: and the cause thereof is
justly ascribed to the pressure of the air against their two external surfaces. He
taking then two plates, each of them but about an inch square, being of that
matter of which anciently they made looking glasses, and closing so exactly
together, that without putting any thing between, the uppermost keeps not
only up the other, but sometimes also with it three pounds of lead fastened to
the lowermost, and thus they remain together as long as you please. Having
thus joined them and charged them with three pounds weight, he suspended
them in the recipient of his engine, and exhausted it of air so far as that there
remained not enough to sustain by its pressure as much as an inch high of water;
and yet his plates disjoined not. He adds, that he made the same experiment
by putting spirit of wine between the two plates; and found, that in the reci-
pient evacuated of air they sustained, without being severed, the same weight
they did when it was full of air. This he thinks shows clearly enough, that
there remains yet in the recipient a pressure great enough after that of the air is
thence taken away ; and that there is no more reason to doubt of it, than of the
pressure of the air itself.

VOL. VII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. S

The second experiment is, that whereas the effect of a syphon of unequal legs,
by which you make the water of a vessel run over, is no longer ascrihed to a
fuga vacui, but to the weight of the air, which pressing upon the water of the
vessel makes it rise in the syphon, whilst on the other side it descends by its
\veight; M. Huy gens found a means to make the water of the syphon run,
after the recipient was exhausted of air, and he saw, that with water purged of
air* it did the effect as well as without the recipient. The shortest of the leg*
of the syphon was 8 inches long, and its aperture, of two lines. And he will not
have us doubt, whether the recipient was well exhausted of air; for he did assure
himself of that, as well by finding that there came out no more air through the
pump, as by other more certain marks.

And this he takes for a further confirmation of his supposition of a pressing
matter more subtle than the air. To which he adds, that if you take the pains of
searching, to what degree the force of this pressure reaches, (which he says
cannot be better made than by pursuing the experiment with tubes full of mer-
cury, yet longer than those employed by M. Boyle,) it will perhaps be found,
that this force is great enough to cause the union of the parts of glass and of
other sorts of bodies, which hold too well together to be conjoined only by their
contiguity and rest, as M. Descartes would have it.-f-

Extract from Mr. John Templers Letter of March 30, 1672, to Dr. Walter
Needham, concerning the Structure of the Lungs. N° 86, p. 5031.

In answer to the request of an ingenious physician, I was lately engaged to
give my thoughts on the structure of the lungs, as follows : —

I formerly conceived the lungs to be composed of a multitude of vesicles; into
"which opinion I was persuaded by inflation in the aspera arteria of fowls ; and
observing the continuation of many vesicles extended from the bronchia through

* M. Huygens has made this experiment, as well with water as with mercury.

f M, Huygens, though a very great mathematician, in tliis memoir, very unphilosophically, in
order to explain the cause of the adherence of certain bodies together, when in close contact, has
recourse to the action of a matter, of whose existence there has never been any kind of evidence.
The effects in such instances as above-mentioned, have since that time been more rationally ascribed
to the attraction of cohesion j a principle which manifests itself whenever bodies are brought into close
contact. Hence arises tlie considerable adhesion of two perfect planes: hence the compact and firm
adherence of masses of matter : hence the ascent of fluids up the sides of their containing vessels :
hence their ascent even in open tubes, to considerable heights, so much the higher as the tubes are
smaller: hence the necessity of giving a considerable width to the barometer tubes: hence even a
drop of water falls not from a mass without a visible reluctance, &:c.

B2

4 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1672.

the abdomen to the anus, (which I imagine to be the cause of the constant
motion of the anus in fowls ; the air having ingress and egress there ; and also
that to be the reason why the anuses of fowls are, in malignant distempers, ap-
plied to draw the infection out of the body :) I thence conjectured the substance
of the lungs to be a complication of a multitude of vesicles with the sanguinQous
vessels. And in this opinion I thought myself confirmed, by blowing into the
aspera arteria of quadrupeds, when I had cut off part of the exterior membrane
of one lobe of the lungs, and found the lungs to rise with unequal protuberances
not unlike bladders.

But this second contrivance, which I am going to describe to you, has much
shaken that conjecture. March 2, l6^^, I made a ligature about a dog's neck,
and opening both the jugular veins with a pretty large orifice, I let him bleed to
death, (using this way to prevent being overcharged, either with any quantity
of blood, or with blood coagulated ; both which would have been hazarded, in
case I had either strangled the dog, or cut one or both of the jugulars asunder:)
immediately I opened the thorax, and tying the vena cava, with all the passages
from the left ventricle of the heart, or its auricle, I cut the lungs with the heart
and aspera arteria entirely out. To the aspera arteria I fitted a syphon 7 inches
long, which I thrust 2 inches in length into the said artery, and fastened it with
a strong binding of packthread. This done, I blew up the lungs, and fitting a
cork to the end of the syphon, hung them in a chimney to dry. In a quarter of
an hour they subsided about a sixth part ; whereupon I ordered a person to
watch them, and to blow them up as often as they subsided. Which course
continued, they would not the next morning subside a fourth part in three
hours. And (excepting three quarters of an inch distance from the circumfe-
rence of the lobes, where the thinness of the substance of the lungs gave the
external heat the advantage of a sudden passage, and quick dispatch of drying
those parts least furnished with moisture,) I did not perceive, making a propor-
tionable allowance for the drying of the whole substance of the lungs, any con-
siderable subsiding in two days more. But upon the blowing in at the syphon
(whose ligature I was now forced to renew,) I could easily feel the air pass
through the external membranes, both on the convex and concave sides, towards
the extremity of the circumference of the lobes; but most abundantly on the
concave side.

March 5th, I carefully cut off one of the lobes, and the inward structure
seemed like a cane or dried flag when transversely cut; and, upon blowing in at
the syphon, I fancied the air to come equally out at all the pores I had exposed
to view. Whereupon I fixed spittle in several places, and upon fresh blowing
found multitudes of bubbles, made in the denudated parts of the lobe. I im-

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5

mediately made a deep transverse incision into that lobe, and blowing in at the
syphon, found the air to come so freely out at the larger ramifications of the
bronchia, that I could not give the lobe a considerable rise with a strong blast:
yet upon stopping with my fingers the larger passages of the bronchia, which I
had cut, I found that lobe upon a fresh blast, rise considerably with unequal
protuberances (where the incision was made) giving no small suspicion of some
latent vesicles. Hereupon I tied that lobe above the incision, and taking off
part of the external membrane of another lobe, (having first tied up all the rest
of the lobes) I poured water into the syphon, and applied a strong blast, in
hopes to have the water come forth in streams at all the pores; but that did not
satisfactorily succeed, it coming out in a confused irroration of the external
surface, without any ebullition, unless at the larger ramification of the bronchia.
Then I tied up this second lobe, and untied a third, pouring in an ounce of the
oil of turpentine; at the syphon I gave a small blast, and corked it up. Two
hours after I took off" the small membrane of that lobe, and upon a gentle blast
at the syphon found an ebullition of infinitely small bubbles.

March 10, (having continued it to the chimney) I cut all the lobes in pieces
by different and various irregular incisions; whence I could easily observe the
several ramifications of the aerial and sanguineous vessels, with their continua-
tion to the circumference of the lobes, and a proportionable diminution as they
were at a further distance from their original.

Shall I hence conclude the structure of the lungs to be a complication of a
multitude of the ramifications of the bronchia and sanguineous vessels ? and
that the seeming vesicles were occasioned only by the violence of the blast, and
the dryness of the extreme and smallest passages of the aerial vessels ; where-
upon those, nearest to the bronchia (being moister) were, more than their or-
dinary proportion, extended, upon hindrance of a free and usual passage to the
air in the lesser vessels or their extremities ? *

Soine Astronomical Observations in part already made, partly to he made.
By Mr. John Flamsteed. N° 86, p. 5034.

These prognostications and observations are now no longer of any use.

* The forcible inflation here resorted to is a great objection to deducing any conclusions from these
experiments, which mdeed appear to be of little value. The bronchial tubes, which are ramifica-
tions of tlie trachea, ultimately lose their cartilaginous structure, and terminate in membranous vesi-
cles or cells, which in the act of inspiration become distended with air. Upon the surfaces of tliese
air-cells are spread the minute ramuli of the pulmonary blood-vessels, so as to have their contained
fluid (the blood) subjected to the chemical action of the air; not indeed by immediate contact, but
with no other intervening medium than the exquisitely thin coats of the distended vesicles or ceils.

0 PHILOSOPHICAL TIIANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

jin Accurate Description of the Lake of Geneva, not long since inade by a Person
that had visited it divers Times in the pleasantest Season of the Year-, and com-
municated to the Ptiblisher by one of his Parisian Correspondents. Translated
by tJw Editor. N° 86, p. 5043.

Instead of reprinting the description here given from the original Transac-
tions, we think it better to refer our readers to the description of this lake as
given by that accurate Swiss naturalist De Saussure, (Voyages dans les Alpes et
Hist. Naturelle des Environs de Geneve) and to the travels of our countryman
Mr. Coxe.

An Account of some Books. N° 86, p. 5047.

I. Lux Mathematica, Collisionibus Johannis Wallisii et Thomas Hobbesii
fcxcussa: Multis et fulgentissimis aucta radiis, Auth. R. R. Adjuncta Censura
Doctrinae Wallisianae de libra, una cum Roseto Hobbesii. Lond. 1672,
in 4to.

The author of this book (probably Mr. Hobbes himself) states that he has
deduced the rise and occasion of the disputes between Dr. Wallis and Mr.
Hobbes, and commended the many and difficult propositions and demonstra-
tions said to be advanced by the latter of them, and compared these with those
of Dr. Wallis. He then proceeds to the controversies themselves, endeavouring
to vindicate Mr. Hobbes's assertions from the objections of Dr. Wallis.

II. Optique de Portraiture et Peinture, contenant la Perspective Speculative
et Pratique accomplie, &c. Par Gregoire Huret, Desseignateur et Graveur or-
dinaire de la Maison du Roy, et de I'Academie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture.
A Paris, 1670, in fol.

This elegant volume in French states the chief aim of its author to have
been, to contribute what he could to the instruction and improvement of youth,
studious of these excellent arts, and groundedly to teach them the rules and
other means, that are really useful and absolutely necessary to them in the
same.

III. Christiani Friderici Germani, Physici Chemnicensis, Academici Curiosi,
Homo ex ovo. Chem. 1672, in 4to.

This author having collected what has of late years been asserted and pub-
lished concerning the generation of other animals, as well as of fowl and fish,
out of eggs; and taken with Kerkringius particular notice, tam virgines quam
conjugatas saepissime ova excernere (which he no more wonders at, than that
hens and other birds are matres et tamen virgines) then proceeds to consider the

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. 7

advantage of this doctrine, and its happiness in explaining many phacnomena,
hardly explicable without it ; such as the production of more foetuses than one ;
the production of monsters: the many odd symptoms in women, from the pu-
trcfuction or imperfect constitution of the egg or eggs; the production of
molas; barrenness, &c. Having dispatched this, he takes occasion to examine
the question, an fieri conceptio possit extra utcrum? ubi nonnuUa disseruntur
de homunculo chymico sive paracelsico; quae apud ipsum vide authorem.

IV. A short and sure Guide in the Practice of raising and ordering of Fruit-
trees; by Francis Drope, B.D. late Fellow of Magdalen College in Oxford.
Oxford, 1672.

This piece appears by the preface to have been written from the author's own
experience. The particulars insisted on in this discourse are principally: 1. Of
raising stocks from the seed. 2. Of the nursery. 3. Of grafting. 4. Of ia-
noculating of stocks raised without seed, and trees without incision.

j4n Extract of a Latin Epistle of Dr. Joel Langelot, Chief PhyHcian to the
Duke of Holstein now Regent ; wherein is represented, that by these three
Chemical Operations, Digestion, Fermentation, and Triture, or Grinding
(hitherto, in the Author's Opinion, not siifficiently regarded) many Things of
admirable use may be performed. Translated by Mr. Oldenburg. N° 87,
p. 5052.

It is sufficient to give the title of this long alchemical paper, without making
any extract from it. Philosophers can employ their time better in these days,
than by reading accounts of experiments said to yield results not reconcilable
with the known and immutable properties of natural bodies.

An Extract of a Letter from Mr. Lister to the Editor, both enlarging and cor^
reeling his former Notes about Kermes; arid insinuating his Conjecture of
Cochineal being a Sort of Kermes. N° 87, p. 5059.

We must correct as well as enlarge our notes concerning kermes.* These
things are certain :

] . That we have this year seen the very gum of the apricot and cherr}'- laurel
trees transudated, at least standing in a crystal drop upon some (though very
rarely) of the tops of these kermes. 2. That they change colour from a yellow
to a dark brown ; that they seem to be distended and to wax greater, and from
soft to become brittle. 3. That they are filled with a sort of mites ; that small

* Compare herewith what was published in Nos. 7l> 72, and 73.

8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I672.

powder (which I said to be excrement) being mites as well as that liquamen or
softer palp (which I took to be bee's meat) concerning both which particulars I
am pretty well assured by my own, and also by my ingenious friend Dr. John-
son of Pomfret's more accurate microscopical observations. 4. That the bee-
grubs actually feed on mites, there being no other food for them. 5. That
there are other species of bees or wasps besides those by me described ; which
are sometimes found to make these mites their food; Dr. Johnson having
opened one husk, with one only large maggot in it. 6. That there are proba-
bly different sorts of mites in these husks, making possibly different species of
kermes ; for some I have found to hold carnation-coloured mites, enclosed in a
fine white cotton, the whole husk starting from the twig, shrivelling up, and
serving only for a cap or cover to that company of mites. Other mites I have
seen white, and (which is most usual) the husks continuing entire, and not
coming away from the twig they adhere to, and but little cotton at the bottom.
Those of the first sort are the white cob-webs on the vine, described by Mr.
Hook Micrograph. Obs. 56. 7- That the shrivelled cap to be found upon the
mites enclosed in cotton, as also the whole husk itself, if taken early in April,
while soft, will, dried in the sun, shrink into the very figure of cochineal;
whence we guess that cochineal may be a sort of kermes taken thus early and
sun-dried.

Hitherto this summer's notes concerning kermes. This advantage at least
we may have by them; that the account taken from M. Verney by Dr. Croon,
and published in one of the Transactions,* is made more intelligible; the small
scarlet powder there mentioned being to be understood of those mites, and they
to be distinguished from the bee-grubs, which are changed into the skipping
fly, that is, the bee, (for kind at least) by us described formerly, I am, &c.
York, Oct. p, 1671.

An Extract of a Letter from Mr. Thomas Piatt, from Florence, August 6,
\QT1, concerni7ig some Experiments there made upon Vipers, since M. Charas's
Reply to the Letter ivritten by Sig. t'rancesco Redi to M. Bourdelot and
M. Morus. N° 87, p. 5060.

The experiments related in this paper afford a complete refutation of Charas's
opinion, that the venom of vipers is in their angered spirits, and confirm in the
strongest manner the fact advanced by Redi, that their poison resides in the
yellow fluid contained in the vesicles attached to their gums. Mr. Piatt states,

* See No. 20. •

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTION*. t)

that being at the house of Sig. Magalotti on the 2d of June, 1672, there aime
Dr. Francini with a box containing many heads, cut off that morning, of vipers,
lately brought from Naples. He immediately desired to have some animals to
begin his experiments upon ; but there being at that time no other company
with Signer Magalotti but his brother and I, it was thought fit to stay till next
morning, that those gentlemen, who were at the dispute last winter, might be
present.

I, however, desired the doctor to make at least one experiment, which being
granted, Signor Magalotti was sent to the public market for a couple of pigeons,
which were first wounded with the teeth of a viper's head that had been cut oft*
about seven or eight o'clock the same morning. The way of making the wound
was, by thrusting twice the master teeth into the fleshy part of the pigeon's
breast, till such time as pressing the upper part of the jaw, the two little blad-
ders that serve as gums to the teeth, did empty out upon the wound some of
that yellow liquor, which here is supposed to be the true and only poison of the
viper. This pigeon being thus bit, and set upon the ground, began to stagger
immediately, and died in less than three or four minutes. The second pigeon
was wounded in the same manner, but at the first w^ound there only entered
one of the teeth, which brought forth a great deal of blood; the second time
they both entered, and this had the same fiite, with this diflference only, that he
languished half a quarter of an hour.

The next morning there met at Signor Magalotti's chambers, besides the
company of the day before, Signor Carlo Dati, Signor Vincenzo Viviani, Signor
Paola del Ara, Dr. Savona, Dr. Neri, Dr. Fabrini, and some others. Where-
upon six pigeons and a cock having been brought, the first thing that Dr. Fran-
cini did, was to thrust several thorns of rose shrubs into the breast of one of
those pigeons, to manifest that such accidents as might befal those that should
be wounded by the teeth of the deg,d vipers, were not merely caused by the
wound. And whereas one of the company began to make some nice reflections,
and take some of the heads to measure the just proportions of their teeth, to see
what difi'erence there might be betwixt them and the thorns ; this made the
doctor lose patience, and soon taking a pin, which was none of the least, he
gave to the first pigeon, that he could lay hands on, a very deep wound in the
breast, which no sooner was got free but began to leap and frisk about the
room, as if it had not been concerned in the least.

After this, a pigeon was bit in the breast by both the master teeth of a vi-
per's head, that had been cut off the morning before; the efl^ect was, that the
pigeon had the same shaking fits; after which falling upon his belly he died,
giving signs a little before of a painful agony, by his often gaping. His end

VOL. II. C

10 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

was not only very sensible to him, but also more tedious than that of the other
day; for this lived 5 or 6 minutes after his wound. Another having been
served in the same manner with another head, died within a quarter of an
hour.

All this appearing as yet to the doctor, to exclude but little the doctrine of
spirits, which now began to lose ground after so many experiments of dead
vipers heads ; he took three stalks out of a broom, and having smoothed them
and sharpened them at the ends after the manner of a lancet, he drew from the
gums of several heads enough of that yellow juice to daub two of those stalks;
which, being thus moistened with that liquor, were both put into Ihe breasts of
two pigeons, and there left ; the like having been done to another with the 3d
stalk not covered with that juice, which was at least one third part larger and
longer than the other two. In a word, the first two died within 4 or 5 minutes,
and the last continues to this very day in Signor Magalotti's pigeon-house as
brisk and as fat as ever ; his wound in his breast, instead of having caused an
inflammation, is now almost perfectly healed.

Whilst these experiments were making, it came into the heads of some to
try another, upon the relation that Signor Paolo dell' Ara (lately come from
Paris) had made; which was, that some asserted there, that, to swallow a
viper's heard was a most certain preservative and remedy against the biting of a
viper. Dr. Francini smiled at that fancy; but to give full satisfaction, he made
two experiments. The one was, by making the cock swallow a viper's head,
and then causing him to be well bitten in both thighs by a live one. But the
cock continuing some time before he gave any signs of sickness ; not to lose
time, he passed to the other experiment, by thrusting the teeth of a dead viper's
head into another pigeon, that had before got down one of those heads into his
belly. The conclusion was, that both died, the cock within a quarter of an
hour, and the pigeon in less than 4 minutes.

The news of these experiments made many persons curious to see them per-
formed once more; so that, some few days after, a rendezvous was made in
Signor Magalotti's garden, where, besides the forenamed persons, met Mr.
Thomas Frederick, Mr. John Godscall, Abbot Strozzi, Signor Paolo Falconieri,
Signor Luigi del Riccio, Mons. Pelletier, Mons. Morelle, Dr. Gornia, Dr.
Bellini, Signor Lorenzo Lorenzini, and Signor Pietro Salvetti.

The assembly having been first informed by Dr. Francini of the grounds of
this dispute and of the former observations, he began the same experiments by
causing 1 pigeons to be bit by a viper's head that had been dead above ten hours,
in such a manner that by pressing the gums some of that yellow liquor might
drop into the wound. They both died, one in 6 minutes, and the other in 8;

VOL. VII.l PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J J

and not being content with this, with another viper's head they poisoned a
chicken, which died in ]0 minutes. There appeared afterwards another pigeon,
that had been wounded many hours before, by a dead viper's head ; but it had
been dead so long, that the liquor quite dried up in the gums, was become so
hard, that none could come to the teeth ; whence this pigeon was very well :
and Dr. Francini having caused the same bird to be bit again by the same dried
head, it had (after a little fluttering with his wings whilst the pain of the biting
lasted) no other harm.

A live viper then being taken, 4 chickens were bit by it one after another.
The first two, either because the liquor did not penetrate into the wound, or
the blood expelled it, appeared not to have any distemper. The 4th looked as
if it would die presently ; but a little after coming to himself he got clear off for
that time. But the third, which seemed at first to be very lively, died within an
hour and a half.

There being afterwards a young bitch brought in, she was bit twice by a live
viper in the middle of the hanging part of the ear : whereupon she very soon
began to give mortal signs, by staggering, vomiting and being convulsed ; after
which having a little recovered herself, the same accidents returned upon her,
and four hours after her being bit she seemed as if dead, holding out her
tongue, and looking very ghastly, without any other sign of life than that of
painful breathing ; to which she added sometimes a faint barking and howling.
In which condition she was still found next morning, only her respiration was
y€t weaker, and she appeared drawing to her end. It was observed, that no
part of her body was swelled, nor had any spot upon it. She had voided back-
ward some matter of a very black colour, of which her hind parts being very
foul, a swarm of gnats and wasps were devouring her alive : which moved one
of the servants of the house, to knock her on the head.

After this two capons and a pullet were bit by a fresh viper, vexed on pur-
pose; and because they gave not then any signs of being ill; they were sent
back to their coops, but were surprised at night by a distemper, which in all
likelihood proceeded from the poison; for next morning one of the capons and
the pullet were found dead.

Dr. JVaUis's Answer to the Book, entitled Lux Mathematical &c. described m

Number 86. N° 87, p. 5067.

More of the controversy with Mr. Hobbes, not worth reprinting.

C2

12 > PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

Ejusdem Doctoris JVaUlsii non nulla, De Cenlro Gravitatis Hyperhohej Pn^gressce
Epistolce suhnexa. N° 87, p. 5074.

These intricate algebraical expressions and calculations, relating to the centre
of gravity, have been properly superseded by tHe easy method of fluxions, since
happily invented.

j4n Jlccount of some Books. N° 87, p. 5076.

I. Tractatus de Natura Substantise Energetica, seu de Vita Naturae, ejusque
Tribus primis Facultatibus ; Perceptiva, Appetitiva, Motiva, &c. Auth. Franc.
Glissonio, Med. D. et P. et Coll. Med. Lond. Socio, nee non Societatis Re-
galis Collega. Lond. An. 1 672, in 4to.

This metaphysical tract is not interesting to philosophers of the present day.

II. Jeremiae Horroccii* Angli Opera Posthuma : una cum Guil." Crabtraei
Observationibus Coelestibus; nee non Joh. Flainstedii de Temporis ^quatione

* This splendid genius was born at Toxteth in Lancashire, about the year 1619. From a gram-
mar school in the country, he was sent to Cambridge, where he spent some time in academical
studies. He began at 14 years of age to apply to the study of astronomy j but from his want of
books, and tlie moderate circumstances of his father, he could make but small progress in it. About
3 years after he formed an acquaintance with Mr. Wm. Crabtree, of Broughton near Manchester,
who was also engaged in the same studies, and with whom a correspondence was carried on till his
death. Thus encouraged, young Horrox assumed new vigour, procured other books and instruments,
and was pursuing his studies and observations with great assiduity, when his progress was suddenly
arrested by the hand of death, the 3d of Jan. l6'40, in the 22d year of his age.

What we see of his wridngs, in the book noticed in this article, is sufficient to show how great a
loss the world- had by his death. He had just finished his " Venus in Sole visa," 1639, a little be-
fore. This was published in 1668, by Hevelius, as above noticed. His other posthumous works,
or rather his imperfect papers, were published by Dr. Wallis, as stated in the article above, with
some account of his lifej in which we find he first asserts and promotes the Keplarian astronomy
against the hypothesis of Lansberg ; which he proves to be inconsistent with itself, and neither agree-
ing with theory nor observations. He vindicates Tycho Brahe fi-om some objections made to his
hypothesis, and gives a new theory of the moon ; to which are added the lunar numbers of Mr.
Flam steed. There are also extracts from several letters between him and Mr. Crabtree, on various
astronomical matters ; witli a catalogue of astronomical observations.

There are two things particularly which will perpetuate tlie memory of tliis very extraordinary
young man. The one is, that he was the first person that ever predicted or saw the planet Venus in
the sun. Though he was not aware of the great use that was to be made of it, in discovering the
parallax and distance of the sun and planets, yet he made from it many useful observations, corrections,
and improvements in the theory of the motions of Venus. Secondly, his new theory of lunar mo-
tions ; which Newton himself made the ground work of all his astrononiy, relative to the moon ; and
who always spoke of our author as a genius of the first order. ^

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 13

Diatriba, Numerisque Lunaribus ad novum Lunac Systema Horroccii. Lond.
An. 1(>72, in 4to.

Mr. Horrox was also the author of that excellent tract, called Venus in Sole
visa, published by Hevelius, together with his Mercurius in Sole visus : who if
he had not been snatched away by an untimely death in the flower of his age,
would by his industry and exactness, which accompanied his great affection for
astrononjy, have very considerably advanced that science. Now we have only
left us these imperfect papers, digested with great care and labour, by that
learned mathematician Dr. John Wallis.

III. Marcelli Malpighii Phil, et Medici Bononiensis Dissertatio Epistolica de
Formatione Pulli in Ovo : Lond. 16/2, in 4to.

This exercitation of Signer Malpighi, contains an account of his having dis-
covered, that in fecund eggs, as well before as after incubation, the first rudi-
ments and lines of the principal parts of the chick are contained in the eggs;
whereas in subventaneous or addle eggs, inste^id of such a formation, there is
found nothing but an ^informed globous ash-coloured body, like a mola. Of
these prima stamina or beginnings, this author has traced the progress, by ob-
serving their changes, after incubation, every six hours, for the first two days ;
and after that, every 12 or 24, or 48 hours. In doing which, he has observed
many very curious and remarkable particulars, especially about the priority of
the motion of the heart before the production of true blood, though that liquor,
before it becomes red, be, according to him, before the motion of the heart;
as also about the said liquor first emerging, viz. whether it be a simple colliqua-
mentum, or a liquor vitalis, or a sanguis inchoatus : concerning which he
asserts, that the carina, and the beginnings of the head, brain, and spinal
marrow, do manifestly appear before the collection of that liquor, and its mo-
tion, and change into the nature of blood.

IV. De Mente Humana Libri quatuor, &c. Auth. J. B. du Hamel P. S. L»
Par. An. 1672, in 12mo.

The learned author of this book here treats of the nature, powers, functions,
and immortality of the soul.

Mr. Isaac Neivtons Ansiver to some Considerations on his Doctrine of Light and
Colours : as printed in Number 80 oj^ these Tracts. N° 88, p. 5084.

At the perusal of the considerations you sent me, on my letter concerning
refractions and colours, I found notliing that, as I conceived, might not without
difficulty be answered. And though I find the considerer somewhat more con-

14 PHILOSOPHICAL TIlAJfSACTIONS. [anNO idj'l.

cerncd for an hypothesis than I expected ; yet I doLibt not but we have one
common design ; I mean a sincere endeavour after knowledge, without valuing
uncertain speculations for their subtleties, or despising certainties for their
plainness: and on confidence of this I make this return to his discourse.*

The first thing that offers itself is less agreeable to me, and I begin with it
because it is so. The considerer'}" is pleased to reprehend me for laying aside
the thoughts of improving optics by refractions. If he had obliged me by a
private letter on this occasion, I would have acquainted him with my successes
on the trials I have made of that kind, which I shall now say have been less
than I sometimes expected, and perhaps than he at present hopes for. But
since he is pleased to take it for granted, that I have let this subject pass with-
out due examination, I shall refer him to my former letter,;]: by which that con-
jecture will appear to be ungrounded. For, what I said there, was in respect
of telescopes of the ordinary construction, signifying, that their improvement is
not to be expected from the well-figuring of glasses, as opticians have imagined;
but I despaired not of their improvement by other constructions ; which made
me cautious to insert nothing that might intimate the contrary. For, although
successive refractions that are all made the same way, do necessarily more and
more augment the errors of the first refraction ; yet it seemed not impossible
for contrary refractions so to correct each others inequalities, as to make their
difference regular ; and, if that could be conveniently effected, there would be
no further difficulty. Now to this end I examined what may be done, not only
by glasses alone, but more especially by a complication of divers successive
mediums, as by two or more glasses or crystals, with water or some other fluid
between them ; all which together may perform the office of one glass, espe-
cially of the object-glass, on whose construction the perfection of the instru-
ment chiefly depends. But what the results in theory or by trials have been, I
may possibly find a more proper occasion to declare.

To the assertion, that rays are less truly reflected to a point by a concave,
than refracted by a convex, I cannot assent; nor do I understand, that the focus
of the latter is less a line than that of the former. The truth of the contrary you
will rather perceiv-e by this following table, computed for such a reflecting con-
cave, and refracting convex, on supposition that they have equal apertures, and
collect parallel rays at an equal distance from their vertex ; which distance being
divided into 1 5000 parts, the diameter of the concave sphere will be 60000 of

* Which discourse was thought needless to be here printed at length, because in the body of this
answer are to be met with the chief particulars, wherein the answerer was concerned. (Original.)
"t Mr. Hook.
X Printed in Number 80, of these tracts.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

15

VOL. VII.]

those parts, and of the convex 10000; supposing the sines of incidence and
refraction to be, in round numbers, as 2 to 3. And this table shows, how much
the exterior rays, at several apertures, fall short of their principal focus.

The Diameter
of the Apertvire.

The parts of the

between the ver

Reflected,

Axis intercepted

tex and the rays

Refracted.

The Error by
Reflection, Refraction.

2000
4000
6000
8000
10000

14966
14924
14865

14787

14865
14449
13699
12475
9472

8-y

33

1^
135
213

135

551

1301

2525

5528

By this you may perceive, that the errors of the refracting convex are so far
from being less, that they are more than sixteen times greater than the like
errors of the reflecting concave, especially in great apertures; and that without
respect to the heterogeneous constitution of light. So that, however the con-
trary supposition might make the authorof these animadversions reject reflections,
as useless for the promoting of optics; yet I must for this, as well as other con-
siderations, prefer them in the theory, before refractions.

Whether the parabola be more diflicult to describe than the hyperbola or
ellipsis, may be a quaere : but I see no absolute necessity for endeavouring after
any of their descriptions. For, if metals can be ground truly spherical, they
will bear as great apertures, as I believe men will be able to communicate an
exact polish to. And for dioptric telescopes, I told you, that the difliculty con-
sisted not in the figure of the glass, but in the difFormity of refractions : which
if it did not, I could tell you a better and more easy remedy than the use of the
conic sections.

Thus much concerning the practical part of optics. I shall now take a view
of the considerations on my theories. And those consist in ascribing an hypo-
thesis to me which is not mine; in asserting an hypothesis, which, as to the
principal parts, is not against me; in granting the greatest part of my discourse
if explicated by that liypothesis; and in denying some things, the truth of
which would have appeared by an experimental examination.

Of these particulars I shall discourse in order. And first of the hypothesis,
which is ascribed to me in these words: *' But grant his first supposition, that
light is a body, and that as many colours or degrees as there may be, so many
bodies there may be; all which compounded together would make white, &c."
This it seems is taken for my hypothesis. It is true that from my theory I argue

id PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS i [aNNO I672.

the corporeity of light; but I do it without any absolute positiveness, as the
word perhaps intimates; and make it at most but a very plausible consequence
of the doctrine, and not a fundamental supposition, nor so much as any part of
it; which was wholly comprehended in the precedent propositions, ^nd I some-
what wonder how the objector could imagine, that when I had asserted the
theory with the greatest rigour, I should be so forgetful as afterwards to assert
the fundamental supposition itself with no more than a perhaps. Had I intended
any such hypothesis I should somewhere have explained it. But I knew that
the properties which I declared of light, were in some measure capable of being
explicated, not only by that, but by many other mechanical hypotheses. And
therefore I chose to decline them 'all, and to speak of light in general terms,
considering it abstractly, as something or other propagated every way in straight
lines from luminous bodies, without determining what that thing is; whether a
confused mixture of difForm qualities, or modes of bodies, or of bodies them-
selves, or of any virtues, powers, or beings whatsoever. And for the same rea-
son I chose to speak of colours according to the information of our senses, as if
they were qualities of light without us. Whereas by that hypothesis I must
have considered them rather as modes of sensation, excited in the mind by
various motions, figures, or sizes of the corpuscles of light, making various me-
chanical impressions on the organ of sense; as I expressed it in that place,
where I spake of the corporeity of light.

But supposing I had propounded that hypothesis, I understand not, why the
objector should so much endeavour to oppose it. For certainly it has a much
greater affinity with his own hypothesis, than he seems to be aware of; the
vibrations of the asther being as useful and necessary in this as in his. For assum-
ing the rays of light to be small bodies, emitted every way from shining sub-
stances, those', when they impinge on any refracting or reflecting superficies,
must as necessarily excite vibrations in the asther, as stones do in water when
thrown into it. And supposing these vibrations to be of several depths or
thicknesses, accordingly as they are excited by the said corpuscular rays of
various sizes and velocities; of what use they will be for explicating the manner
of reflection and refraction, the production of heat by the sun beams, the
emission of light from burning, putrifying, or other substances whose parts are
vehemently agitated, the phaenomena of thin transparent plates and bubbles, and
of all natural bodies, the manner of vision, and the difference of colours, as
also their harmony and discord; I shall leave to their consideration, who may
think it worth their endeavour to apply this hypothesis to the solution of phae-
nomena.

In the second place, I told you that the objector's hypothesis, as to the funda-

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 17

mental part of it, is not against mc. That fundamental supposition is — " That
the parts of bodies, when briskly agitated, do excite vibrations in the aether,
which are propagated every way from those bodies in straight lines, and cause a
sensation of light by beating and dashing against the bottom of the eye, some-
thing after the manner that vibrations in the air cause a sensation of sound by
beating against the organs of hearing." Now the most free and natural applica-
tion of this hypothesis, to the solution of phacnomena, I take to be this: that the
agitated parts of bodies, according to their several sizes, figures, and motions,
do excite vibrations in the aether of various depths or sizes, which being
promiscuously propagated through that medium to our eyes, effect in us a sensa-
tion of light of a white colour; but if by any means those of unequal sizes
be separated from one another, the largest beget a sensation of a red colour, the
least or shortest of a deep violet, and the intermediate ones of intermediate
colours; much after the manner that bodies, according to their several sizes,
shapes, and motions, excite vibrations in the air of various sizes, which, ac-
cording to those sizes, make several tones in sound: that the largest vibrations
are best able to overcome the resistance of a refracting superficies, and so break,
through it with least refraction ; whence the vibrations of several sizes, that is,
the rays of several colours, which are blended together in light, must be parted
from one another by refraction, and so cause the phaenomena of prisms and other
refracting substances: and that it depends on the thickness of a thin transparent
plate orbubble, whether a vibration shall be reflected at its further superficies, or
transmitted; so that according to the number of vibrations, interceding the two
superficies, they may be reflected or transmitted for many successive thicknesses.
And since the vibrations which make blue and violet, are supposed shorter than
those which make red and yellow, they must be reflected at a less thickness of
the plate: which is sufficient to explicate all the ordinary phaenomena of those
plates or bubbles, and also of all natural bodies, whose parts are like so many
fragments of such plates.

These seem to be the most plain, genuine and necessary conditions of this hy-
pothesis: and they agree so justly with my theory, that if the animadversor
think fit to apply them, he need not on that account apprehend a divorce from
it. But yet how he will defend it from other difficulties I know not. For to
me the fundamental supposition itself seems impossible ; namely, that the waves
or vibrations of any fluid can, like the rays of light, be propagated in straight
lines, without a continual and very extravagant spreading and bending every way
into the quiescent medium, where they are terminated by it. I mistake if there
be not both experiment and demonstration to the contrary. And as to the
other two or three hypotheses which he mentions, I had rather believe them

VOL. II. D

18 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1672.

subject to the like difficulties, than suspect the animadversor should select the
worst for his own.

What I have said of this, may be easily applied to all ether mechanical hypo-
theses, in which light is supposed to be caused by any pression or motion
whatsoever, excited in the aether by the agitated parts of luminous bodies. For
it seems impossible that any of those motions orpressions can be propagated in
straight lines without the like spreading every way into the shadowed medium on
which they border. But yet, if any man can think it possible, he must at least
allow, that those motions, or endeavours to motion, caused in the aether by the
several parts of any lucid body, that differ in size, figure, and agitation, must
necessarily be unequal: which is enough to denominate light an aggregate of
difform rays, according to any of these hypotheses. And if those original
inequalities may suffice to differ the rays in colour and refrangibility, I see
no reason why they that adhere to any of those hypotheses, should seek for
other causes of these effects, unless (to use the objector's argument) they will
multiply entities without necessity.

The third thing to be considered, is the conditions of the animadversor's
concessions, which is, that I -would explicate my theories by his hypothesis:
and if I could comply with him in that point, there would be little or no differ-
ence between us. For he grants, that witiiout any respect to a different inci-
dence of rays there are different refractions ; but he would have it explicated,
not by the different refrangibility of several rays, but by the splitting and rarefy-
ing of aethereal pulses. He grants my third, fourth, and sixth propositions ;
the sense of which is, that uncompounded colours are unchangeable, and that
compounded ones are changeable only by resolving them into the colours of
which they are compounded; and that all the changes, which can be wrought in
colours, are effected only by variously mixing or parting them : but he grants them
on condition that I will explicate colours by the two sides of a split pulse, and
so make but two species of them, accounting all other colours in the world to
be but various degrees and dilutings of those two. And he further grants, that
whiteness is produced by the convention of colours ; but then I must allow it to
be not only by mixture of those colours, but by a farther uniting of the parts of
the ray supposed to be formerly split.

If I would proceed to examine these his explications, I think it would be no
difficult matter to show that they are not only insufficient, but in some respects
to me at least, unintelligible. For though it be easy to conceive how motion
may be dilated and spread, or how parallel motions may become diverging; yet
I understand not by what artifice any linear motion can, by a refracting super-
ficies be infinitely dilated and rarefied, so as to become superficial ; or if that be

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQ

supposed, yet I undcrstaiul as little, why it should be split at so small an angle
only, and not rather spread and dispersed through the whole angle of refraction.
And further, though I can easily imagine how unlike motions may cross one an-
other; yet I cannot well conceive how they should coalesce into one uniform
motion, and then part again, and recover their former unlikeness; notwithstand-
ing that I conjecture the ways by which the animadversor may endeavour to
explain it. So that the direct, uniform and undisturbed pulses should be split
and disturbed by refraction ; and yet the oblique and disturbed pulses persist
without splitting or further disturbance by following refractions, is to me as unin-
telligible. And there is as great a difficulty in the number of colours, as you
will see hereafter.

But whatever be the advantages or disadvantages of this hypothesis, I hope I
maybe excused from taking it up, since I do not think it needful to explicate
my doctrine by any hypothesis at all. For if light be considered abstractedly
without respect to any hypothesis, I can as easily conceive, that the several
parts of a shining body may emit rays of different colours and other qualities, of
all which light is constituted, as that the several parts of a false or uneven string,
or of unevenly agitated water in a brook or cataract, or the several pipes of an
organ inspired all at once, or all the variety of sounding bodies in the world
together, should produce sounds of several tones, and propagate them through
the air confusedly intermixt. And, if there were any natural bodies that could
reflect sounds of one tone, and stifle or transmit those of another; then, as the
echo of a confused aggregate of all tones would be that particular tone, which
the echoing body is disposed to reflect; so, since, even by the animadversor's
concessions, there are bodies apt to reflect rays of one colour, and stifle or
transmit those of another; I can as easily conceive that those bodies, when
illuminated by a mixture of all colours, must appear of that colour only which
they reflect.

But when the objector would insinuate a difficulty in these things, by allud -
ing to sounds in the string of a musical instrument before percussion, or in the
air of an organ bellows before its arrival at the pipes ; I must confess, I under-
stand it as little, as if one had spoken of light in a piece of wood before it be
set on fire, or in the oil of a lamp before it ascend up the match to feed the
flame.

You see therefore, how much it is beside the business in hand, to dispute
about hypotheses. For which reason I shall now in the last place proceed to
abstract the difficulties in the animadversor's discourse, and, without having re-
gard to any hypothesis, consider them in general terms. And they may be re-
duced to these 3 quaeries :

D 2

20 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1672.

1 . Whether the unequal refractions made without respect to any inequality
of incidence, be caused by the different refrangibility of several rays ; or by the
splitting, breaking or dissipating the same ray into diverging parts ?

2. Whether there be more than two sorts of colours ?

3. Whether whiteness be a mixture of all colours?

The first of these quaeries you may find already determined by an experiment
in my former letter ; the design of which was to show, that the length of the
coloured image proceeded not from any unevenness in the glass, or any other
contingent irregularity in the refractions. Amongst other irregularities, I
know not what is more obvious, to suspect, than a fortuitous dilating and
spreading of light, after some such manner as Descartes has described in his
sethereal refractions, for explicating the tail of a comet ; or as the animadversor
now supposes to be effected by the splitting and rarefying of his aethereal pulses.
And to prevent the suspicion of any such irregularities, I told you that I re-
fracted the light contrarywise with two prisms successively, to destroy thereby
the regular effects of the first prism by the second, and to discover the irregular
effects by augmenting them with iterated refractions. Now, amongst other
irregularities, if the first prism had spread and dissipated every ray into an in-
definite number of diverging parts, the second should in like manner have
spread and dissipated every one of those parts into a further indefinite number,
whereby the images would have been still more dilated, contrary to the event.
And this ought to have happened, because those linear diverging parts depend
not on one another for the manner of their refraction, but are every one of them
as truly and completely rays as the whole was, before its incidence ; as may ap-
pear by intercepting them severally.

The reasonableness of this proceeding will perhaps better appear by acquaint-
ing you with this further circumstance. 1 sometimes placed the second prism
in a position transverse to the first, on design to try, if it would make the long
image become four-square, by refractions crossing those that had drawn the
round image into a long one. For if, amongst other irregularities, the re-
fraction of the first prism did, by splitting, dilate a linear ray into a superficial,
the cross refractions of that second prism ought, by further splitting, to dilate
and draw that superficial ray into a pyramidal solid. But, upon trial, I found it
otherwise; the image being as regularly oblong as before, and inclined to both
the prisms at an angle of 45 degrees.

I tried also all other positions of the second prism, by turning the ends about
its middle part; and in no case could observe any such irregularity. The image
was ever alike inclined to both prisms, its breadth answering to the sun's dia-

TOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANS-ACTIONS. 21

meter, and its length being greater or less accordingly as the refractions more
or less agreed, or contradicted one another.

And by these observations, since the breadth of the image was not augmented
by the cross refraction of the second prism, that refraction must have been per-
formed without any splitting or diluting of the ray ; and therefore at least the
light incident on that prism, must be granted an aggregate of rays unequally re-
frangible in my sense. And since the image was equally inclined to both prisms,
and consequently the refractions alike in both, it argues that they were per-
formed according to some constant law without any irregularity.

To determine the second quaere, the animadversor refers to an experiment,
made with two wedge-like boxes, recited in the Micrography of the ingenious
Mr. Hook, observation 10, page 73; the design of which was, to produce all
colours out of a mixture of two. But there is, I conceive, a double defect in
this instance. For it appears not, that by this experiment all colours can be
produced out of two ; and, if they could, yet the inference would not follow.

That all colours cannot by that experiment be produced out of two, will ap-
pear by considering, that the tincture of aloes, which afforded one of those-
colours, was not all over of one uniform colour, but appeared yellow near the
edge of the box, and red at other places where it was thicker : affording all
variety of colours from a pale yellow to a deep red or scarlet,, according to the
various thickness of the liquor. And so the solution of copper, which afforded
the other colour, was of various blue and iixligoes. So that, instead of two
colours, here is a great variety made use of for the production of all others..
Thus, for instance, to produce all sorts of greens,, the several degrees of yellow
and pale blue must be mixed; but to compound purples, the scarlet and deep
blue are to be the ingredients.

Now if the animadversor contend, that all the reds and yellows of the one
liquor, or blue and indigoes of the other, are only various degrees and dilutings
of the same colour, and not divers colours, that is a begging of the question :
And I should as soon grant, that the two thirds or sixths in music are but
several degrees of the same sound, and not divers sounds. Certainly it is much
better to believe our senses, informing us, that red and yellow are divers colours,
and to make it a philosophical quasre, why the same liquor does, according to
its various thickness, appear of those divers colours, than to suppose them to
be the same colour because exhibited by the same liquor ? For, if that were a
sufficient reason, then blue and yellow must also be the same colour^ since they
are both exhibited by the same tincture of nephritic wood. But that they are
divers colours, you will more fully understand by the reason, which, in my
judgment is this : The tincture of aloes is qualified to transmit most easily the

22 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

rays indued with red, most difficultly the rays indued with violet, and with in-
termediate degrees of facility the rays indued with intermediate colours. So
that where the liquor is very thin, it may suffice to intercept most of the violet,
and yet transmit most of the other colours ; all which together must compound
a middle colour, that is a faint yellow. And where it is so much thicker, as
also to intercept most of the hlue and green, the remaining green, yellow, and
red, it must compound an orange. And where the thickness is so great, that
scarcely any rays can pass through it besides those indued w^ith red, it must ap-
pear of that colour, and that so much the deeper and obscurer, by how much the
liquor is thicker. And the same may be understood of the various degrees of
blue, exhibited by the solution of copper, by reason of its disposition to inter-
cept red most easily, and transmit a deep blue or indigo colour most freely.

But supposing that all colours might, according to this experiment, be pro-
duced out of two by mixture ; yet it follows not, that those two are the only
original colours, and that for a double reason. First, because those two are
not themselves original colours, but compounded of others ; there being no
liquor nor any other body in nature, whose colour in day-light is wholly un-
compounded. And then, because, though those two were original, and all
others might be compounded of them, yet it follows not that they cannot be
otherwise produced. For I said that they had a double origin, the same colours
to sense being in some cases compounded, and in others uncompounded ; and
sufficiently declared in my third and fourth j^ropositions, and in the conclusion,
by what properties the one might be known and distinguished from the other.
But, because I suspect, by some circumstances, that the distinction might not
be rightly apprehended, I shall once more declare it, and further explain it by
examples.

That colour is primary or original, which cannot by any art be changed, and
whose rays are alike refrangible : and that compounded, which is changeable
into other colours, and whose rays are not alike refrangible. For instance, to
know whether the colour of any green object be compounded or not, view it
through a prism, and if it appear confused, and the edges tinged with blue,
yellow, or any variety of other colours, then is that green compounded of such
colours as at its edges emerge out of it : but if it appear distinct, and well de-
fined, and entirely green to the very edges, without any other colours emerg-
ing, it is of an original and uncompounded green. In like manner, if a re-
fracted beam of light, being cast on a white wall, exhibit a green colour, to
know whether that be compounded, refract the beam with an interposed prism;
and if you find any diffi3rmity in the refractions, and the green be transformed
into blue, yellow, or any variety of other colours, you may conclude that it

VOL. VII.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 23

was compounded of those which emerge : but if the refractions be uniform, and
the green persist without any change of colour, then is it original and uncom-
pounded. And the reason why I call it so, is, because a green indued with
such properties cannot be produced by any mixing of other colours.

Now, if two green objects may to the naked eye appear of the same colour,
and yet one of them through a prism seem confused and variegated with other
colours at the edges, and the other distinct and entirely green ; or, if there may
be two beams of light, which flilling on a white wall, do to the naked eye exhi-
bit the same green colour, and yet one of them, when transmitted through a
prism, be uniformly and regularly refracted, and retain its colour unchanged,
and the other be irregularly refracted and made to divaricate into a multitude of
other colours ; I suppose these two greens will in both cases be granted of a
different origin and constitution. And if by mixing colours, a green cannot be
compounded with the properties of the unchangeable green, I think I may call
that an uncompounded colour, especially since its rays are alike refrangible, and
uniform in all respects.

The same rule is to be observed in examining, whether red, orange, yellow,
blue, or any other colour, be compounded or not. And, by the way, since all
white objects through the prism appear confused, and terminated with colours,
whiteness must according to this distinction, be ever compounded, and that the
most of all colours, because it is the most confused and changed by re-
fractions.

From hence I may take occasion to communicate a way for the improvement
of microscopes by refraction. The way is, by illuminating the object in a
darkened room with light of any convenient colour not too much compounded:
for by that means the microscope will, with distinctness, bear a deeper charge
and larger aperture, especially if its construction be such as I may hereafter de-
scribe; for the advantage in ordinary microscopes will not be so sensible.

There remains now the third quaere to be considered, which is, whether
whiteness be an uniform colour, or a dissimilar mixture of all colours ? The ex-
periment which I brought to decide it, the animadversor thinks may be other-
wise explained, and so concludes nothing. But he might easily have satisfied
himself by trying what would be the result of a mixture of all colours. And
that very experiment might have satisfied him, if he had pleased to examine it
by the various circumstances. One circumstance I there declared, of which I
see no notice taken ; and it is, that if any colour at the lens be intercepted, the
whiteness will be changed into the other colours: if all the colours but red be
intercepted, that red alone, in the concourse or crossing of the rays, will not
constitute whiteness, but continues as much red as before ; and so of the other

24 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1672.

colours. So that the business is not only to show, how rays, which before the
concourse exhibit colours, do in the concourse exhibit white; but to show,
how in the same pllace, where the several sorts of rays apart exhibit several
colours, a confusion of all together make white. For instance, if red alone be
first transmitted to the paper at the place of concourse, and then the other
colours be let fall on that red, the question will be, whether they convert it
into white, by mixing with it only, as blue falling on yellow light is supposed
to compound green ; or, whether there be some further change wrought in the
colours by their mutual acting on one another, until like contrary peripatetic
qualities, they become assimilated. And he that shall explicate this last case
mechanically, must conquer a double impossibility. He must first show, that
many unlike motions in a fluid can by clashing so act on one another, and
change each other, as to become one uniform motion ; and then, that a uni-
form motion can of itself, without any new unequal impressions, depart into a
great variety of motions regularly unequal. And after this he must further tell
me, why all objects appear not of the same colour, that is, why their colours in
the air, where the rays that convey them every way are confusedly mixed, do
not assimilate one another and become uniform, before they arrive at the
spectator's eye ?

But if there be yet any doubting, it is better to put the event on further cir-
cumstances of the experiment, than to acquiesce in the possibility of any hypo-
thetical explication. As, for instance, by trying, what will be the apparition of
these colours in a very quick consecution of one another. And this may be
easily perfcH-mfcd by the rapid gyration of a wheel with many spokes or cogs in
its perimeter, whose interstices and thicknesses may be equal, and of such a
size, that, if the wheel be interposed between the prism and the white con-
course of the colours, one half of the colours may be intercepted by a spoke or
cog, and the other half pass through an interstice. The wheel being in this
posture, you may first turn it slowly about, to see all the colours fall suc-
cessively on the same place of the paper, held at their aforesaid concourse ; and
if you then accelerate its gyration, until the consecution of those colours be so
quick, that you cannot distinguish them severally, the resulting colour will be a
whiteness perfectly like that, which an unrefracted beam of light exhibits, when
in like manner successively interrupted by the spokes or cogs of that circulating
wheel. And that this whiteness is produced by a successive intermixture of the
colours, without their being assimilated, or reduced to any uniformity, is cer-
tainly beyond all doubt, unless things that exist not at the same time may not-
withstanding act on one another.

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 25

There are yet other ci renin stances by which the truth might have been de-
cided, as by viewing the white concourse of the colours through another prism
placed close to the eye, by whose refraction that whiteness may appear again
transformed into colours; and then, to examine their origin, if an assistant in-
tercept any of the colours at the lens before their arrival at the whiteness, the
same colours will vanish from amongst those, into which that whiteness is con-
verted by the second prism. Now if the rays which disappear be the same with
those that are intercepted, then it must be acknowledged, that the second
prism makes no new colours in any rays which were not in them before their
concourse at the paper. Which is a plain indication, that the rays of several
colours remain distinct from one another in the whiteness, and that from their
previous dispositions are derived the colours of the second prism. And, by
the way, what is said of their colours may be applied to their refrangibility.

The aforesaid wheel may be also here made use of; and, if its gyration be
neither too quick nor too slow, the succession of the colours may be discerned
through the prism, whilst to the naked eye of a bystander they exhibit white-
ness.

There is something still remaining to be said of this experiment. But this,
I conceive, is enough to enforce it, and so to decide the controversy. How-
ever, I shall now proceed to show some other ways of producing whiteness by
mixtures, since I persuade myself that this assertion, above the rest, appears
paradoxical, and is with most difficulty admitted. And because the animadver-
sor desires an instance of it in bodies of divers colours, I shall begin with that.
But in order thereto it must be considered, that such coloured bodies reflect
but some part of the light incident on them; as is evident by the 13th proposi-
tion; and therefore the light reflected from an aggregate of them, will be much
weakened by the loss of many rays. Whence a perfect and intense whiteness is
not to be expected, but rather a colour between those of light and shadow, or
such a grey or dirty colour as may be made by mixing white and black to-
gether.

And that such a colour will result may be collected from the colour of dust
found in every corner of a house, which has been observ^ed to consist of many
coloured particles. There may be also produced the like dirty colour by mixing
several painters colours together. And the same may be eff^ected by painting
a top (such as boys play with) of divers colours. For, when it is made to cir-
culate by whipping it, it will appear of such a dirty colour.

Now the compounding of these colours is proper to my purpose, because
they difl^er not from whiteness in the species of colour, but only in degree of
luminousness; which, did not the animadversor concede it, I might thus evince.

VOL. II. E

26 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l672i

A beam of the sun*s light behig transmitted into a darkened room, if you illu-
minate a sheet of white paper by that light, reflected from a body of any colour,
the paper will always appear of the colour of that body by whose reflected light
it is illuminated. If it be a red body, the paper will be red; if a green body,
it will be green, and so of the other colours. The reason is, that the fibres or
threads, of which the paper consists, are all transparent and specular; and such
substances are known to reflect colours without changing them. To know,
therefore, to what species of colour a grey belongs, place any grey body (sup-
pose a mixture of painters colours) in the said light, and the paper, being illu-
minated by its reflection, shall appear white. And the same thing will happen,
if it be illuminated by reflection from a black substance.

These therefore are all of one species; but yet they seem distinguished, not
only by degrees of luminousness, but also by some other inequalities, whereby
they become more harsh or pleasant. And the distinction seems to be, that
greys and perhaps blacks are made by an uneven defect of light, consisting as it
were of many little veins or streams, which differ either in luminousness, or in
the unequal distribution of diversely coloured rays; such as ought to be caused
by reflection from a mixture of white and black, or of diversely coloured cor-
puscles. But when such imperfectly mixed light is by a second reflection from
the paper more evenly and uniformly blended, it becomes more pleasant, and ex-
hibits a faint or shadowed whiteness. And that such little irregularities as these
may cause these differences is not improbable, if we consider how much variety
may be caused in sounds of the same tone by irregular and uneven jarrings.
And besides, these differences are so little that I have sometimes doubted, whe-
ther they be any at all, when I have considered that a black and white body
being placed together, the one in a strong light and the other in a very faint
light, so proportioned that they might appear equally luminous, it has been dif-
ficult to distinguish them, when viewed at a distance, unless when the black
seemed more bluish, and the white body in a light still fainter, has in compari-
son of the black body, itself appeared black.

This leads me to another way of compounding whiteness, which is, that if
four or five bodies of the more eminent colours, or a paper painted all over, in
several parts of it, with those several colours in a due proportion, be placed in
the said beam of light, the light reflected from those colours to another white
paper, held at a convenient distance, shall make that paper appear white. If it
be held too near the colours, its parts will seem of those colours that are nearest
them; but by removing it further that all its parts may be equally illuminated
by all the colours, they will be more arid more diluted, until they become per-
fectly white. And you may further observe, that if any of the colours be in-

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 27

tercepted, the paper will no longer appear white, but of the other colours which
are not intercepted. Now, that this whiteness is a mixture of the severally co-
loured rays, falling confusedly on the paper, I see no reason to doubt; be-
cause if the light became uniform and similar before it fell confusedly on the
paper, it must much more be uniform when at a greater distance it falls on the
spectator's eye, and so the rays, which come from several colours, would in no
qualities differ from one another, but all of them exhibit the same colour to the
spectator, contrary to what he sees.

Not much unlike this instance it is, that if a polished piece of metal be so
placed, that the colours appear in it as in a looking-glass, and then the metal
be made rougl^i, that by a confused reflection those apparent colours may be
blended together, they shall disappear, and by their mixture cause the metal
to look white.

But further to enforce this experiment, if instead of the paper, any white
froth, consisting of small bubbles, be illuminated by reflection from the afore-
said colours, it shall to the naked eye seem white, and yet through a good mi-
croscope the several colours will appear distinct on the bubbles, as if seen by
reflection from so many spherical surfaces. With my naked eye, being very
near, I have also discerned the several colours on each bubble: and at a greater
distance, where I could not distinguish them apart, the froth has appeared en-
tirely white. And at the same distance, when I looked intently, I have seen
the colours distinctly on each bubble ; and yet by straining my eyes as if I would
look at something far off beyond them, thereby to render the vision confused,
the froth has appeared without any other colour than whiteness. And what is
here said of froths may easily be understood of the paper or metal in the fore-
going experiments. For their parts are specular bodies, like these bubbles;
and perhaps with an excellent microscope the colours may be also seen inter-
mixedly reflected from them.

In proportioning the severally coloured bodies to produce these effects, there
may be some niceness ; and it will be more convenient to make use of the co-
lours of the prism, cast on a wall, by whose reflection the paper, metal, froth,
and other white substances, may be illuminated. And I usually made my trials
this way, because I could better exclude any scattering light from mixing with
the colours to dilate them.

To this way of compounding whiteness may be referred that other, by mixing
light after it has been trajected through transparently coloured substances. For
mstance, if no light be admitted into a room but only through coloured glass,
whose several parts are of several colours in a pretty equal proportion ; all white
things in the room shall appear white, if they be not held too near the glass.

£ 2

as PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672,

And yet this light, with which they are ilkiminated, cannot possibly be uniform,
because if the rays, which at their entrance are of divers colours, do in their
progress through the room suffer any alteration to be reduced to a uniformity ;
the glass would not in the remotest parts of the room appear of the very same
colour, which it does when the spectator's eye is very near it: nor would the
rays, when transmitted into another dark room through a little hole in an oppo-
site door or partition wall, project on a paper the species or representation of the
glass in its proper colours.

And by the by, this seems a very fit and cogent instance of some other parts
of my theory, and particularly of the 13th proposition. For in this room all
natural bodies whatever appear in their proper colours. And all the phaenomena
of colours in nature, made either by refraction or without it, are here the same
as in the open air. Now the light in this room being such a dissimilar mixture,
as I have described in my theory, the causes of all these phaenomena must be
the same that I have there assigned. And I see no reason to suspect, that the
same phaenomena should have other causes in the open air.

The success of this experiment may easily be conjectured by the appearances
of things in a church or chapel, whose windows are of coloured glass; or in the
open air, when it is illustrated with clouds of various colours.

There are yet other ways by which I have produced whiteness ; as by casting
several colours from two or more prisms upon the same place; by refracting a
beam of light with two or three prisms successively, to make the diverging co-
lours converge again; by reflecting one colour to another; and by looking
through a prism on an object of many colours ; and (which is equivalent to the
above-mentioned way of mixing colours by concave wedges filled with coloured
liquors,) I have observed the shadows of a painted glass window to become white,
where those of many colours have at a great distance interfered. But yet, for
further satisfaction, the animadversor may try, if he please, the effects of four or
five of such wedges, filled with liquors of as many several colours.

Besides all these, the colours of water bubbles, and other thin pellucid sub-
stances, afford several instances of whiteness produced by their mixture; with
one of which I shall conclude this particular. Let some water, in which a con-
venient quantity of soap or wash-ball is dissolved, be agitated into froth, and,
after that froth has stood a while without further agitation, till you see the bub-
bles of which it consists begin to break, there will appear a great variety of
colours all over the top of every bubble, if you view them near at hand; but if
you view them at so great a distance, that you cannot distinguish the colours one
from another, the froth will appear perfectly white.

Thus much concerning the design and substance of the animadversor's con-

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 2Q

siderations. There are yet some particulars to be taken notice of before I con-
clude, as the denial of the Experimentum Crucis. On this I chose to lay the
whole stress of my discourse ; which therefore was the principal thing to have
been objected against. But I cannot be convinced of its insufficiency by a bare
denial, without assigning a reason for it. I am apt to believe it has been mis-
understood ; for otherwise it would have prevented the discourses about rarefy-
ing and splitting of rays: because the design of it is to show, that rays of divers
colours considered apart, do at equal incidences suffer unequal refractions, with-
out being split, rarefied, or any ways dilated.

In the considerations of my first and second propositions, the animadversor has
rendered my doctrine of unequal refrangibility very imperfect and maimed, by
explicating it wholly by the splitting of rays ; whereas I chiefly intended it in
those refractions that are performed without that supposed irregularity; such as
the Experimentum Crucis might have informed him of. And in general I find,
that whilst he has endeavoured to explicate my propositions hypothetically, the
more material suggestions by which I designed to recommend them, have esca-
ped his consideration; such as are, the unchangeableness, of the degree of re-
frangibility peculiar to any sort of rays; the strict analogy between the degrees of
refrangibility and colours; the distinction between compounded and uncom-
pounded colours; the unchangeableness of uncompounded colours; and the
assertion, that if any one of the prismatic colours be wholly intercepted, that
colour cannot be new produced out of the remaining light by any further refrac-
tion or reflection whatsoever. And of what strength and efficacy these particu-
lars are for enforcing the theory, I desire therefore may be now considered.

^?i Account of tivo Books. N° 88, p. 5103.

I. Ottonis de Guericke * Experimenta Nova Magdebrurgica, de Vacuo Spatio,
&c. Ams. An. 1672, in fol.

* Otto or Otho Guericke, counsellor to the Elector of Brandenbourg, and burgomaster of Magde-
bourg, was born in l602, and died at Hanibourg in l6"86. He was one of the best philosophers of
his time, and produced several useful inventions. Of these, one was the air-pump j and the two
brass hemispheres, which being applied to each other, and the air drawn out, \6 horses were not able
to draw them asunder j also the virunculus or marmouset, which descended in a tube against rain,
and rose again on the return of serene weather j besides several others: though the last machine fell
into disuse after the invention of the barometer. He was also the author of several other works on
Natural Philosophy, besides that noticed in the article above, which contains his experiments on tlie
vacuum. As Guericke made use of his marmouset to foretel storms, he was considered as a sor-
cerer by the people ; and hence, when tlie thunder had one day fallen on his house, and broken to
pieces some machines which he had employed in his experiments, they failed not to say it was a pu-
nishment from heaven, that was angry at his infernal dealings.

30 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

After a narrative of the chief hypotheses and opinions of both ancient and
recent astronomers, concerning the system of the world, and having represented
the great difficulties in the Ptolemaic and Tychonic, and repeated the answers
to the objections against the Copernlcan; the author at large gives us his own
thoughts of the frame and constitution of the world; by which world he under-
stands, in his treatise, the complex of the planets, disposed and ordered much
after the Gopernican way, the sun being seated in the midst, having his spots
about him, and moving and influencing all the rest of the planets according to
their several distances from him ; Saturn making the utmost of all the planets,
and the end of this his world being where the diffusive power and virtue of the
sun, the king and governor of them all, terminates, which bounds he conjec-
tures to extend themselves, beyond Saturn, to those fixed stars that are of the
nearer rank to Saturn's orb.

Concerning the bodies lodged in these planets, he thinks it consonant to the
power and wisdom of the Great Creator, that there should be such a variety of
them, as to stock each of the said planets with creatures differing from those of
others: so that nothing of what is in (e. g.J our earth or terraqueous globe, is
to be found In any of the other planets, but that every one of them is stored
with peculiar creatures, and even with such reasonable ones, as are of another
kind from the men of our earth.

In the body of the work, many experiments, contrivances, and effects, are
described; in which, however, the ingenious author has been, in many instances,
preceded by our illustrious Boyle.

One curious experiment, in which he seems to be singular, may be here
noticed, being an early instance of electricity, though he seemed to have some
other mysterious ideas about it.

By which experiment he thinks may be represented the chief virtues he enu-
merates of our earth, performed by a globe of sulphur melted and cooled again,
and then perforated, to traject an iron axis through it for circumvolution ;
whereby attrition being used withal, he affirms that the impulsive, attractive,
expulsive, and other virtues of the earth, as he calls them, may be ocularly
exhibited.

II. Thesaurus Mediclnae Practlcse ; studio et opera Thomas Burnet Scoto
Britanni, M-.D, et Medici Regis Ordinarii. Lond. 1672, in 4to.

A compilation from the ancients, and the principal medical writers up to the
17 th century.

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 31

So7ne Observations about Shining Flesh, made by Mr. Boyle, March 15, 1 67 1-72,
in a Letter to the Editor. N° 89, p. 5108.

Mr. Boyle observed a neck of veal to shine in as many as 20 places, though
not all alike, as rotten wood or stinking fish do. The size of these lucid parts was
considerably different; nor were their figures uniform ; some being round, others
almost oval, but for the most part very irregularly shaped. The parts that
shone most, were some gristly or soft parts of the bones, where the butcher*s
cleaver had passed ; though they were not the only parts that were luminous;
for by moving to and fro the spinal marrow, a part of it emitted light ; and he
perceived one place in a tendon to afford some light; and lastly, three or four
spots in the fleshy parts, at a good distance from the bones, were plainly disco-
vered by their own light, though fainter than in the above-mentioned parts. —
When all these lucid parts were surveyed at once, they made a very splendid
show; so that applying a printed paper to some of the more luminous spots, he
could plainly read divers letters of the title. — ^The colour of the Tight was not
the same in each, but in those that shone liveliest, it seemed to have such a fine
greenish blue as is observed in the tails of glow worms. But notwithstanding^
the vividness of this light, it did not yield the least degree of heat to the touch ;
and applying to the most shining places a sealed weather-glass, the tinged spirit
of wine was not observed to be sensibly affected; and notwithstanding the great
number of lucid parts, not the least degree of stench was perceivable to infer
any putrefaction; the meat being judged very fresh and well conditioned, and
fit to be dressed. — The floor of the larder where this meat was kept, w^as almost
a story lower than the level of the street, and divided from the kitchen by a
partition of boards only, and with one small window looking northward. — The
wind, as far as could be observed, was then south-west, and pretty high. The
air by the thermometer appeared hot for the season, which was March, the
moon was past its last quarter; the mercury in the barometer stood at 29 -J^
inches. One of the luminous parts, which proved to be a tender bone, and of
the thickness of a half crown piece, appeared to shine on both sides, though not
equally ; and the part of the bone whence this had been cut off, was seen to
shine, but not near so vividly as the part taken off did before. It yielded no
luminous juice, or moist substance, as the tails of glow-worms do; upon com-
pressing a piece of the luminous flesh between two pieces of glass, its light was
not extinguished: and putting a luminous piece into a crystalline phial, and
pouring on it a little pure spirit of wine^ and shaking them together, in about a

32 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO lOjI.

quarter of an hour or less, the light was vanished. But water could not so
easily destroy this light; for putting one of the pieces into a china cup, almost
full of cold water, the light did not only appear through that liquor, but above
an hour after it was vigorous enough not to be eclipsed by being looked on at
no great distance from a burning candle. On conveying one of the larger lumi-
nous pieces into a small receiver, the pump was plied in the dark, and on the
gradual removal of the air, there was perceived a gradual diminution of the light,
though it never quite disappeared, as the light of rotten wood and glow worms
were observed to do; but by the hasty increase of light, that disclosed itself in
the veal upon admitting the air into the exhausted receiver, it appeared that the
decrement, though but slowly made, had been considerable. This experiment
was once more repeated with the like success ; which, though it was a proof
that this luminous matter was more vigorous, or tenacious, than that of most
other shining bodies, yet there remained some doubt, whether the light would
not have been much more impaired, if not made to vanish quite, if the subject
of it could have been kept long enough in the exhausted receiver. — It was also
found, that a leg of the same veal had some shining places in it, though but
very few and faint, in comparison of those that were conspicuous in the above
mentioned neck. — A luminous piece of it included in a phial, after three days
shone as vigorously as ever ; the 4th day its light was also conspicuous, so that
it could be seen even in the day time, in a dark corner of the room ; but before
the ensuing night the light began to decay, and the offensive smell to grow
somewhat strong; which seems to argue, that the disposition, by which the
veal became luminous, may very well consist, both with its being, and not being,
in a state of putrefaction; and consequently is not likely to be derived from the
one or the other. The 5th day, in the morning, looking upon it before the
curtains were opened, it seemed to be more luminous than the preceding day;
the same night it was manifest enough in the dark, though not vivid. The
6th day, in the morning after sun-rising, there was within the curtains a glim-
mering light observable; but the seventh day, late at night, no light at all was
discernible. — Some time after a pullet was observed to shine in four or five
places in the same larder; though not so large as those of the veal, yet almost
as vivid; and all these luminous parts were upon or near the rump, and that
which appeared most like a spark of fire, shone at the very top of that part ; yet
the fowl was fresh and sound.

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 33

Description of an Odd Kind of Mushroom, yidding a Milky Juice, much hotter on
the Tongue than Pepper, &c. Observed by Mr. Lister, N° 89, p. 3 1 16.

The 18th of August last, passing through Marton woods, under Pinno-moor
in Craven, I found an immense number of mushrooms ; some withered, and
others new sprung and flourishing. They were of a large size, something
, larger than the ordinary red-gilled eatable mushroom or champignon, and very
much of their shape, that is, with a perfectly round cap or stool, thick in flesh,
and with open gills underneath ; having a thick, fleshy, solid, and round foot-
stalk, of about six fingers breadth high above ground, and mostly as thick as
my thumb. On cutting any part of this mushroom, it bleeds exceeding freely a
milk white juice, which tastes much hotter on the tongue than pepper: it is
not clammy to the touch; the air does not much discolour it, nor the blade of
a knife, as is usual with most vegetable juices: it became in the glass vial, I
drew it into, suddenly concrete and stiffs, and did in some days dry into a firm
cake: it then also, when well dried, retained its fierce biting taste and white
colour. Further, I observed these mushrooms to abound with fly-maggots.
Also the youngest and tenderest of them, that is, such as were most juicy, were
ver)^ much eaten by the grey meadow naked snail, lodging themselves within
the sides of the plant. *

In another letter of Dec. 17, the same person says : — Mr. Ray returned me
this Answer to my letter about the biting Mushroom : " At my return to
Middleton I found a letter from you, containing the description of a mushroom
discovered by you in Marton woods under Pinno-moor. I doubt not but it is
that described in Job. Bauhin, 1. 40, c. 6, under the title of Fungus piperatus
albus, lacteo succo turgens. Only he says, that it exceeds the champignon in
size ; whereas you write, that there are few of them much larger than that: he
also says, that they are not so thick as that. In all other points the descrip-
tions agree exactly. For the colour, that it is white, gills and all ; for the place,
that it grows in woods; and for the taste, that it is hotter than pepper. Several
particulars mentioned by you, are not observed or not mentioned by him. I
cannot say, that I have as yet met with this mushroom.

* The mushroom here described is the Agaricus piperatus. A. stipitatus, pileo planiusculo lactes-
cente, margine deflexo, lamellis incarnato-pallidis. ifn. *p. ;j/. ;?, l541. It occurs in several of the
Northern parts of England, in Scotland, and probably in most parts of Europe.

VOL. II.

34 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672,

jin Extract from Mr. FlamsteecTs Letter, written to the Editor from Derby, Nov. l6,
1672, concerning the j^ppulses, calculated by hiin for An. 1673 of the Moon,

and the other Planets, to Fixed Stars, with an Observation of the Planet Mars,

N°89, p. 5118.

September last I was at Townley. The first week that I intended to have
observed (^ there with Mr. Townley, I twice observed him, but could not
make two observations, as I intended, in one night. The first night after my
return, I had the good fortune to measure his distances from two stars the same
night : whereby I find, that his parallax was very small ; certainly not 30 se-
conds: so that I believe the sun's parallax is not more than 10 seconds.

Having observed the distances and positions of the three stars, by which ^
made his transit, I find, that Tycho errs five minutes at least both in the places
and latitudes compared one with another. And certainly he errs as much in
many others; so that the labour of M. Hevelius to rectify their places is very
needful. Not that I find fault with Tycho ; it is a wonder, considering how
difficult it is to set plain sights to a small star, that ever he performed so much,
and so well: but if M. Hevelius use not glasses in their room, I fear we shall
be but where we were ; and yet without this restitution we cannot expect any
thing certain, much less accurate, in astronomy.

An Account of some Books. N° 89, p. 5125.

I. Prose de Signori Academici di Bologna ; in Bologna, 1672, in 4to.

This is a collection of 15 Discourses, at several times made by several per-
sons of the illustrious Academy of Bologna, published under the Presidentship
of the Noble Count Valerio Zani ; most of them very ingenious and learned.

II. Relation de divers Voyages Curieux, IV Partie. A Par. 1672, in fol.
The fourth part of the Curious Voyages of M. Thevenot is as yet but begun,

there being only printed of it and transmitted to us two Discourses, the one
containing a Portraiture of the Indians by D, Juan de Palafox, Bishop de la
Puebla de los Angelos; the other a Relation of the Voyages of N. N. into the
river Delia Plata, and thence over land into Peru.

A Further Account of Veins in Plants, &c. by Mr. Lister, in a Letter of Jan. 8,

1672-73. N°90, p. 5132.

We have formerly given you certain reasons for the existence of veins, analo-
gous to those in animals, in all plants whatsoever, mushrooms not excepted. —
To which we might add, that the skin of a plant may be cut sheer off^ with

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 35

part of the spongy parenchyma, and no signs of milky juice follow, that is, no
breach of a vein. Again, we have stripped the plant of its skin, by pulling it
up by the roots, and exposing it to the wet weather, until it became flaccid as
a wet thong, without any injury to the veins, which yet upon incision would
freshly bleed. These experiments make against the general opinion of one only
sap loosely pervading the whole plant, like water in a sponge. And though we
have made these, and many other experiments, to facilitate an ocular demon-
stration of these veins ; yet we have not been able to effect it to our mind, and
subject them as nakedly to our eye as we could wish.

In the transverse cuts of plants, we see as it were a certain order and number
of the bloody orifices of dissected veins. We observ^e also in a leaf, which we
take to be the simplest part of a plant ; 1 . That the veins, &c. keep company
with the ribs and nerves, as we vulgarly call them, and are distributed into all
the parts of the leaf, according to the subdivisions of those nervous lineaments,
and are disposed with them into a certain net-work. — 2. That in a transverse
cut of a leaf, the middle fibre or nerve, for example, seems to yield one large
drop of a milky juice, springing as it were from one vein; yet the microscope
plainly shows us, that there are many veins which contribute to the making up
of that drop. — 3. That if a fibre or nerve be carefully taken out of the leaf, the
veins will appear in it like so many small hairs or pipes, running along and
stripping the nerve. — 4. That those many veins are all of an equal largeness, for
ought we have yet discerned to the contrary. — 5. That though we seem to be
more certain of the ramifications of the fibres, wherein those veins are, we vet
are not so, that those veins do any where grow less and smaller, though pro-
bably it may be so, — 6. That we cannot discern any where, throughout the
whole plant, larger or more capacious veins, than those we see adhering to the
fibres of the leaves ; which do also appear from comparing the bleeding orifices
in a transverse cut. I have found it a difiicult and laborious task, to trace and
unravel them throughout the whole plant.

- Our opinion is, that these veins do still keep company with their respective
fibres. And as all the fibres of the leaf are joined in the stalk of the leaf, and
that stalk explicated in clothing the twig or stem of the plant, so do we think
of the veins, their perpetual companions. — But moreover, in the roots of plants,
if a simple coat be separated and exposed between yoxir eye and the light, the
veins appear to be strangely entangled and implicated, and not in the same
simple order as in the leaves. — From what has been said, it may well be doubted,
whether there is any sinus or common trunk, into which all the veins are
gathered ? But rather that there are a multitude of equally large veins, each
existing apart by itself. We indeed have found it very difficult so to exhaust

p 2

3(5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

the plant of its milky juice, as to kill it, though we have given it very many
incisions to that purpose.

The substance of these veins seems to be as truly membranous, as the veins
of animals : a leaf will not give way and be extended, but the veins in a leaf,
if freed of all the woody fibres, may be stretched out to one third part at least,
and vigorously restore themselves again, just like a vein, gut, or any other
membranous ductus of an animal.- Again these membranous pipes are exceed-
ingly thin and transparent, because they suddenly disappear and subside after
their being exhausted of their juice ; and particularly in that we see the liquor,
they hold, quite through them, no otherwise than the blood through our
veins.

Concerning the external figure of these veins and cavities, as well as other
accidents, we thought they would have been made more apparent to us, if it
were possible to coagulate the juice they hold, without much shrinking the
plant. We were in great hopes freezing would have effected this; which though
it did not succeed as we promised ourselves, in respect of the manifestation of
these accidents; yet it gave us some further light into the nature of the juice of
these veins. In the keenest frost we dissected the frozen leaves of the garden
spurge J and observed, that all the juice, besides that which these veins hold,
was indeed frozen into perfect hard ice, and to be expressed out in the figure of
the containing pores; but the milky juice was as liquid as ever, but not so
brisk as in open weather.

As to the motion of these juices, these things are certain :

1. That the milky juice always moves and springs briskly on the opening of
a vein; the limpid sap but at certain seasons, and as it were by accident. —
2. The venal juice has a manifest intestine motion, or fermentation, within it-
self.

There seem to be in plants manifest acts of- sense. We instance in the sud-
den shrinking of some plants; the frequent closing and opening of flowers ; the
critical erecting of the heads of poppies from a pendulous posture, and parti-
cularly the vermicular motion of the veins when exposed to the air. Again, the
veins of plants may indeed be different, though at present we cannot tell where-
in they are so. The arteries within our heads arc hardly to be known by the
eye from the veins. Further there are natural and spontaneous excretions or
venting of superfluous moisture in plants, visible and constant in the crown im-
perial, rorella, pinguicula, &c.

Lastly, we shall not omit to observe, that either we must take that away from
the other reasons given of the necessity of the circulation of the blood in ani-
mals, viz. the hindering of its breaking and clodding ; or we must grant the

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3?

same motion to the venal juice in plants : we having undeniable exjxiriments to
show, that the venal juice of plants and the blood of animals agree in this, that
they both, when they are once drawn from their respective veins, do forthwith
break and coagulate, and that the serum in the one, as well as in the other,
becomes a stiff' gelly by a little standing.

Copi/ of a Letter from Somersetshire , concerning a 'Strange Frost about Bristol.

N°90, p. 5138.

The freezing rain, which fell here the Qth, lOth, or nth of December last,
has made such a destruction of trees in all the villages and highways, from
Bristol towards Wells, Shepton-Mallet, Bath and Bruton, and in other places
of the west, that both for the manner and matter it may seem incredible; and
is more strange than I have found in any English chronicle.

A credible person thus writes of it, " The late prodigious frost has much
disabled many old orchards exposed to the north-east. Had it concluded with
some gusts of wind, it might have been of sad importance; I weighed the sprig
of an ash-tree of just three quarters of a pound, which was brought to my table;
the ice on it weighed 1 6 pounds, besides what was melted off by the hands of
those that brought it. A very small bent at the same time was produced, which
had an icicle, encompassing it, of five inches round by measure: yet all this
while, when trees and hedges were laden with ice, there was no ice to be seen
on our rivers, nor so much as on our standing pools."

Similar or even worse and more extraordinary complaints I received from
several other places, and from eye witnesses of credit. Some travellers were
almost lost by the coldness of the freezing air, and freezing rain. All the trees,
young and old, on the highway from Bristol to Shepton, were so torn and
thrown down on both sides the ways, that they were unpassable. By the like
obstructions the carriers of Bruton were forced to return back. Some were
affrighted with the noise in the air, till they discerned that it was the clatter of
icy boughs dashed one against another by the wind. Some told me that riding
on the snowy downs, they saw this freezing rain fall upon the snow, and im-
mediately freeze to ice, without sinking at all into the snow; so that the snow
was covered with ice all along, and had been dangerous, if the ice had been
strong enough to bear them.

On Wednesday, Dec. J 1, I saw a young man, who returning home from a
journey of five miles, and coming into a warm room, cried out of extreme
torments in all parts of his body. He affirmed, that the air, and the winds
were so unsufferably cold, that he was in utter despair of coming home alive ;
yet all that day nothing but moist dew fell under our feet.

38 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN0 1672.

As soon as these frosts were over, we had glowing heats, which caused a
general complaint amongst us of excessive sweating, by night and day. The
bushes and many flowers in the garden appeared in such forwardness, as if it
were in April or May. I saw young coleworts growing; roots and leaves; on
the top leaves of an older colevvort. Not far from my abode, an apple-tree
blossomed before Christmas.

In old histories I find, that earthquakes, inundations, droughts, famine,
pestilences, were each of them, in their several seasons, and sometimes one
close on the heels of the other, almost universal over the known world; some-
times raging from place to place several years together. As the learned Meade
relates of a pestilence, which, in the days of Gallus and Volusianus, began in
Ethiopia, and for 15 years wasted all the Roman provinces.

A Method of Draiuing Tangents to all Geometrical Curves , hy M. Ren. Fr. Sluse,
Canon of Liege, in a Letter to the Editor, N° QO, p. 5143. Translated from
the Latin.

I send you. Sir, my method of drawing Tangents to any Geometrical Curve
whatever, and submit it to the censure of the learned men of the Royal Society.
It appears to me so short and easy, that it may be learned by a novice, and with-
out the labour of any further calculation extended to all kinds of lines: but I
wish rather to have the approbation of others, since we are commonly too partial
to our own inventions.

Let any curve DO (Fig. 1, PI. 1,) be given, all the points of which are re-
ferred to any given right line E AB, by the right line A D ; it matters not, whe-
ther E AB be a diameter or any other line, or whether there be also given other
lines, which, or their powers, may enter the equation.

In an analytical equation, for greater plainness, let DA be always designed by
i;, BA by 7/, and let EB and other known quantities be expressed by consonants;
then let DC be supposed drawn, touching the curve in D, and meeting EB pro-
duced, if needful, in the point C; and let C A be always called a ; then this will
be the general rule for finding C A or «. 1. Reject out of the equation all those
members, in which neither y nor v is found ; then put all those terms that have
y, on one side ; and all those which have v, on the other, with their signs + or
— ; and let the latter for distinction and ease sake be called the right, the for-
mer, the left side. 2. On the right side let there be prefixed to each member
the exponent of the power which v has there ; or, which is the same, multiply
all the members into that exponent. 3. Let the same be done also on the left
side, multiplying each member there by the exponent of the power of ?/ therein;
and besides, let one y in each member be always changed into a. — The equation
thus transformed shows the method of drawing a tangent to the given point D.

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3Q

For since that point is given, y and v are likewise given, as also the other quan-
tities expressed by consonants, consequently a becomes known. If there be
found any obscurity in this rule, it will be cleared up by some examples. Let
this equation by — ?/ = i^ be given ; in which let EB be ^?; B A, ?/; DA, v ; and
let a or AC be sought, so that drawing D C, it may touch the curve DQ in D. —
According to the rule, nothing is to be rejected out of this equation, since in
each of its terms either y or v is found ; and it is besides so disposed, that on
one side are all the members in which y is, and on the other side all those in
which V is found; there is therefore only to be prefixed to each member the
exponent of the power o£ y orv in each, and on the left side one y to be changed
into a, that it may be ba — 2ya = 2vv; now this equation shows the method

of drawing a tangent to the point D, or « = ^ — = AC. And if the equa-
tion qq + ^j/ — yy-=.vv were given, the equation for the tangent would be
exactly the same with the preceding, after rejecting qq according to the rule.
So also from 2 by^ — y^ ■=. v"^ arises A by a — 3 yya =: 3v\ or a ^

■ — . And from bby -\- zyy -\- y^ ^ qvv, is obtained bba + 1 zya +

3yya =2qvv, and a=zj^^-~^—-. Also from b^ -{- by^ -^ y' = qqvv

+ zv^ comesSbyya— 4y^a=:2qqvv -^ 3zv^y and hence a = IV^ _ — 77"*

In these and such like equations there can be no difficulty. Possibly there
may be a little in those, which have some of the terms consisting of the products
of ^ and i;: as yv, yyv, y^ vv, &c. Yet that difficulty is but inconsiderable:
for suppose we have^y^ = bvv — yvv\ nothing is to be thrown out of this equa-
tion, since either ?/ or?; is found in each term. But that it may be disposed ac-
cording to the rule, yvv must be taken twice, and be put both on the right side,
in which are the terms having v, and on the left side, whose members have y,
since yv v contains both y and v ; then we must make y^ -|- vvy= bvv — yvv.
And changing this equation as before into another, viz. 3yya -\-vva = 2bvv

— 2vvv, a will be equal to J^"" ^^. For the rule is to be thus understood,
viz. that on the left side the power of v is not to be regarded, so that the expo-
nent of ?;f must not be prefixed to yvv, only that of ^ ; as on the right side, the
power of z/ in yvv must not be regarded, but only that of v, whose exponent is
to be prefixed. Thus, if it were y^ + %* :=2qqv^ — yyv ', it should hey^ +
by'^-\-yyv^=z 2qqv^ — yyv^; and the equation for the tangent would be oy^a

+ 4by^a-\'2yav' = 6qqv^-3yyv^andheucea=: ^^^-o~T-

And these examples seem to comprehend all possible variety of cases. But
perhaps it may be of use to apply what was explained in general to some particu-

40 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO idji,

larline. Let therefore the curve BD, (fig. 2) be given, of such a nature, that
assuming in it any point D, and BD be drawn^ and DE erected perpendicular
thereto, meeting the right line BE inE, the right line DE maybe always equal
to the given right line BF. To express the equation analytically, let DA= v;
BA = 7/; BFor DE = q; thenwillE A be = to—; and, the square of DE being

equal to the two squares of DA and AE^ the equation will he qg = (- vv, or

qqyy =: v'^ -{- i/yvv; which, according to the rule, is to be thus transformed
for the tangent, qqyy — yy^^ ■= v'^ -\- yyva, and then Iqqyv — 2vvya

= 4v^ 4- lyyvv, and hence a = ~ — .

A skilful mathematician cannot be ignorant how to reduce such equations to
easier expressions for construction. As in this example, seeing the rectangle
B AE is supposed equal to the square of AD, if E A be called e, it will hevv^.
ye, and v* z=yyee, and qq z=.ye -\- ee\ therefore substituting these values in

0^7/ -I. 7/ 7/

the above equation, it gives a = — - — ^^, that \^, ae=.1ey-\-yy \ and adding
ee to both sides, ae '\- ee =.ee-\-1 ey -{■ yy \ therefore the three quantities e,
e -[- y, and e+ «, or EA, EB, and EC will be in continued proportion, and the
construction will become easy.

As it has been hitherto supposed^ that the tangent is drawn towards B, though
it may happen from the data to be either parallel to AB, or to be drawn to the
contrary part ; so it now remains to determine, how this variety of cases may be
distinguished in equations. Take then a fraction for a, as in the above mentioned
examples, the parts both of the numerator and denominator with their signs are
to be considered. For, 1 . If in both parts of the fraction all the signs be either
affirmative, or at least the affirmative exceed the negative, the tangent is to be
drawn towards B. 2. If the affirmative quantities exceed the negative in the
numerator, but be equal to them in the denominator, the right line drawn
through D parallel to AB will touch the curve in D; for in that case a is of an
infinite length. 3. If both in the numerator and denominator, the affirmative
quantities be less than the negative, changing all the signs, the tangent is again
to be drawn towards B, and this case coincides with the first. 4. If the affirm-
ative quantities exceed in the denominator, and fall short of the negative in the
numerator, or on the contrary, then changing the signs in that part of the frac-
tion where they are less, the tangent must be drawn the contrary way, that is,
AC must be taken towards E. 5. But whenever the affirmative and negative
quantities are equal in the numerator, let them be how they will in the deno-
minator, a will become nothing ; and consequently the tangent is either A D

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 41

itself, or EA, or parallel thereto; as will easily be found by the data. And these
various cases may be explained by the equations for the circle.

Thus, let the diameter of a semicircle be EB, (Fig. 3), and let D be a given
point, from which may fall the perpendicular AT) = v. Let B A = y, BE = ^*;
then the equation will be hy — yy =. vv\ and drawing the tangent DC, it will

be AC, or a =,_n • Now if b be greater than 2?/, the tangent is to be
drawn towards B ; if less, towards E; if equal to it, it will be parallel to EB ;
as was said in N° 1,2, 4.

Let there be any semicircle inverted, as NDD, (fig. 4), the points of whose
periphery are to be referred to the right line BE, parallel and equal to the dia-
meter. Making NB =2 d, and all things else as above, gives the equation by —

o 71 71 __„ Q,dv

yy =dd-\-vv — 2 f/i; : therefore A C or (2 = — . — . Now since v here is

supposed to be always less than «?; if ^ be greater than 2y, then the tangent
must be drawn towards E ; if equal, it will be parallel to BE ; if less, changing
all the signs, the tangent must be drawn towards B; as by N°4, 5, and 3. But
there could be no tangent drawn, or at least, EB would be the tangent, if NB
had been taken equal to the semidiameter, or 2'd = Z?, as by N** 5.

Let there be another semicircle, whose diameter NB, (fig. 5), is perpendi-
cular to EB, and to which its points are supposed to be referred. Let NB be
called bj and all things standing as before ; then the equation will he yy = bv

— vv, and hence a = —^ Now if Z) be greater than 2 v, the tangent must

be drawn towards B; if less, towards E; but if equal, then DA will be the tan-
gent ; as by N° 1 , 4, and 5 . And these are all the various cases that the con-
sideration of equations can afford.

But how the limits of equations are derived from this doctrine of tangents, I
do not explain, being a thing evident; and the application to the maxima or
minima, which are determined both at once by the parallel tangent: concerning
which, and other matters I have written to you, and have also treated some-
what on them in my Miscellanies ; where I have also shown how to find the
points of contrary flexure from the tangents. The same method may be applied
to other things also, too long to be shown in this letter.

^n Account of some Books. N° 90, p. 5147.

I. A Discourse concerning the Origin and Properties of Wind, &c. By
R. Bohun, Fellow of N. Col. in Oxon. 1671, in 8vo.

After deducing several inferences, from such relations as the author has ob-
tained from books and travellers, he concludes,

VOL. II. G

A^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672.

As to the whole matter, that it will be hard to lay down any perfect theory of
winds, in regard that the great inequalities in the superficies of the earth ; the
several obstacles and repercussions from mountains ; the different situations of
the places and mediums in which they blow; the distance of those countries
from the poles of the world; their respects to the course of the sun, whether
they comply with, or resist the natural motion of the air from east to west, &c. j
have many intricate and nice speculations, not easy to be stated.

II. Deux Machines propres a faire les Quadrans, avec tresgrande facilite;
par le P. Ignace Gaston Pardies, S.J. A Par. 1673, in 12mo.

The author of these two machines thinks they are sufficient for any person,
by their means, to learn the whole theory and practice of dialing, and that in
less than an hour's time; and may practice what he so learns, as it were by play,
drawing the dials on walls, and in his chamber, with the greatest ease.

A New Experiment concerning an Effect of the Varying PPeight of the Atmos-
phere on some Bodies in the water. By R. Boyle, Esq. N° Ql, p. 5156.

I am prone to suspect, that the alterations of the atmosphere in point of
weight may, in some cases, have some considerable effects even on men's
health; as when the ambient air, for instance, grows suddenly very much
lighter than it was before, or than it was wont to be, the spirituous and aerial
particles, that are plentifully harboured in the mass of blood, will naturally
swell that liquor, and so may distend the greater vessels, and not a little alter
the celerity and manner of the circulation of the blood by the capillary arteries
and veins. To countenance this conjecture of mine, I will annex an experiment
that you will not perhaps dislike, just as I find it registered among some of my
loose papers.

I caused to be blown at the flame of a lamp three small round glass-bubbles,
about the size of hazel nuts, and furnished each of them with a short and
slender stem, by means of which they were so nicely poised in water, that
a very small change of weight would make them either emerge, if they but
lightly leaned on the bottom of the vessel, or sink, if they floated on the top of
the water.

This being done at a time when the atmosphere was of a convenient weight,
I put them in a wide-mouthed glass furnished with common water, and suffering
them to continue many weeks, or some months, I observed, as I expected, that
sometimes they would be at the top of the water, and remain there for divers
days, or perhaps weeks ; and sometimes would fall to the bottom, and after

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 43

having continued there for some time, they would again emerge. And though
sometimes they would rise to the top or fall to the hottom of the water, accord-
ing as the air was hot or cold ; yet it was not difficult to distinguish those mo-
tions from those produced by the varying gravity of the atmosphere. For when
the beams of the sun, or heat of the ambient air, by rarefying the air included
in the bubbles, made that air drive out some of the water, and consequently
made the whole bubble (consisting of glass, air and water) somewhat lighter
than a bulk of water equal to it, though the bubble did necessarily swim as long
as the included air was thus rarefied, yet when the absence of the sun, or any
other cause made the air lose its adventitious warmth, there would ensue a
condensation of the air again, and thereupon an intrusion of more water (to
succeed the air) into the glass, and consequently a sinking of the bubble : and
this would commonly happen at night, if it did not happen sooner. But when
it was upon the account of the varying weight of the atmosphere that the bub-
bles either rose or fell, it appeared by the baroscope, that the atmosphere was
so heavy or so light, that they ought to do so. Insomuch that I divers times
predicted, whether I should find the mercury in the baroscope high or low, by
observing the situation and posture of the bubbles ; and consulting that instru-
ment, it verified my conjectures.

N.B. 1. It being very difficult to poise several bubbles precisely, as well one
as another, I thought it not strange, that all the three bubbles did not con-
stantly rise and fall together, but sometimes two of them, and now and then
one alone would sink or emerge, when the change of the weight of the atmos-
phere was not considerable enough to operate sensibly upon the rest. And
therefore it is not amiss, to poise a greater number of bubbles together, that,
after trial made of all, the fittest may be chosen.

2. I have observed it sometimes to happen, that a bubble, that floated when
it was first poised, would after a while subside without any manifest cause; or
if it were made to sink by such a cause, it would continue at the bottom of the
water, though that cause were removed : which difficult phenomenon seeming
to depend upon a kind of imbibition made of certain particles of an aerial na-
ture by the water, the consideration of it belongs to another place, not to this;
where it may suffice, that the experiment did sometimes actually answer ex-
pectation as that above related did ; wherein my main drift was to show, that
since, as the atmosphere is heavier or lighter, it is capable of working upon
bodies under water so as to procure their sinking, or their emersion ; the air
(though a fluid a thousand times lighter) must lean or press upon the water it-
self, by whose intervention it produces these effects ; which confirms what I

G 2

44 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ' [aNNO I672.

elsewhere teach, that the atmosphere is incumbent as a heavy body upon the
terraqueous globe.

Extract from some Letters of Dr. Johi TVallis to the Editor, 1672, Sept. iQ,
&c. concerning the Suspension of Quicksilver ivell purged of Air, much higher
tlian tlie ordinary Standard in the Torricellian Experiment. N° gi,
p. 5 J 60.

I am not sorry to find in your Transactions for the last month, that M.
Huygens endeavours to account for that odd phenomenon in the Torricellian
experiment, of which I give an account in my treatise De Motu, Cap. 14 Schol.
prop. J 3. The phenomenon is this :

Whereas in the Torricellian experiment, the quicksilver contained in the in-
verted tube, how long soever, whose open orifice C, (fig. 6, pi. l) is immerged
in stagnant quicksilver, does usually fall down to the height of about 29 inches
above the surface of the stagnant quicksilver AB, and there remains suspended,
as at I : if the quicksilver be well cleansed from air, it has been found to stand
top-full, much higher, even to the height of 75 inches, and how much higher
it may stand, we cannot tell; but upon the admission of the least air, or a con-
cussion of the tube, it falls down to the usual standard.

Two reasons I did there hint, though not perfectly satisfied in either : the
one of my own, concerning the spring of the air, necessary to put heavy bodies
in motion, not impelled by any other force : the other of my Lord Brouncker,
that there might be in the air yet a greater weight or pressure than is necessary
for the height of 29 inches, in case there be nothing but the bare weight of
quicksilver to be supported.

I find M. Huygens falls in with that of my Lord Brouncker, save that what
we comprehend under the name of air, he calls a more subtile matter : which
alters not the case at all, but only the name. M. Huygens here, by air, seems
to understand that feculent matter arising from the earth and water's effluvia,
which are intermingled with this subtile matter. We mean by air, the aggre-
gate of both these, or whatever else makes up that heterogeneous fluid wherein
we breathe, commonly called air ; the purer part of which is Mr. Hobbes's air;
and the feculent of it is M. Huygens's air. — And therefore, where I speak of
vacuity caused by the Torricellian experiment, or such other ways, I do expressly
caution not to be understood as affirming absolute vacuity, but at least an ab-
sence of that heterogeneous mixture which we call air, such as that is wherein
we breathe ; without disputing against the purus aether of Mr. Hobbes, or the

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 45

materia subtilis of Descartes or M. Iluygens ; as not necessary to the inquiries
in hand.

To the pressure of this purer matter, which they suppose so eubtile, as to
penetrate the mercury, marble, and glass itself, they ascribe the suspension of
the quicksilver to so great a height. And my Lord Brouncker in particular
had a design of prosecuting the experiment, as M. Huygens now advises, to see
if he could bring it to some determination what was the utmost height at
which it might be thus made to stand; thereby to determine the pressure of
this purer matter, as that of the common air is determined by the Torricellian
experiment. But his leisure not then serving, I only gave that brief account of
his notion, as it is there inserted: and, whether he has since had leisure,
amidst a great press of other business to pursue it, I am not certain.

Now, though I would not wholly exclude this, if such shall be found to be
evinced, yet surely there must be somewhat more in it than that of this subtile
matter, to solve the phenomenon, notwithstanding the two experiments now
alleged by M. Huygens in favour of it. For, if this matter be so subtile as to
press, through the top of the glass, on the quicksilver, and consequently
through the upper on the nether of the two marbles, as is acknowledged ; I
do not see why it should not balance itself, above and below, in the same man-
ner as common air would do, if the tube were pervious to it at both ends, and
the quicksilver, by the preponderance of its own weight, fall presently.

And the answer, that, though the glass be- penetrated by it, yet not in so
copious a manner as where no glass is; does not to me solve the difficulty: be-
cause the same obstacle remains just in the same manner when the tube is in
part emptied, and when the quicksilver is unpurged : the pores of the glass not
being, by either of those, made more open or more pervious. And if we sup-
pose the subtile matter by percolation to be strained through, with some dif-
ficulty, as air or water would be through a cloth, this might possibly cause the
quicksilver, when it does sink, to sink gradually; but not, as we see it, suddenly
to fall to the height of 29 inches; as from D to I.

The connection or cohesion of the parts of quicksilver, either to each other,
or to the sides of the glass, which Mr. Huygens supposes to require, for their
separation, a greater force than is in these percolated particles, till they have
room made for them to combine; seems to me the less coiisiderable, because it
is not so necessary to separate them from each other, since they may un-
separated slide down by the sides of the glass ; to which, it is well known, and
visible to the eye, the quicksilver is not at all apt to stick, but doth rather de-
cline that contact; in like manner as we find water not apt to join with oil or
grease; though water to glass, and quicksilver to gold, do very readily apply

46 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1672,

themselves. So that there needs no such force to disjoin the quicksilver from
the glass, whatever there may be for disjoining its parts one from another.

If therefore we should suppose the pressure of the grosser air downwards on
AB, (fig. 6, pi. ]) the surface of the stagnant quicksilver, and consequently by
means thereof, upwards at C, sufficient only to bear up that in the tube to the
height of I ; but the superadded weight or pressure of the purer air to hold it up
as high as D, 75 inches or more, while it is full, and the quicksilver well
cleansed; as if so long it could not enter at D; but in case it be not so cleansed,
or be already sunk to H, this purer air would enter at D, and thrust it down to
I, counterbalancing the pressure (at C) of the purer, but not of the grosser air,
which I take to be the sum of the cause assigned by M. Huygens : I am yet to
seek, why it may not as well penetrate D at first to begin the descent, as after-
wards to pursue it; and why not as well begin the descent when the quicksilver
is well cleansed of air, as when it is not so ; and why also, if the pure air do
freely enter at D, it does not presently fall ; or, if not freely, why, when it does
fall, it falls suddenly and not leisurely from D to I; especially since so small a
weight as DH of pure air (for the grosser cannot enter,) is very inconsidei-able ;
if not at all, or not freely pressed by that incumbent on D; and the adhesion
not considerably less, by being separated only at the top, while it yet continues
to touch the sides.

I am apt therefore, as heretofore, to ascribe the cause of this phenomenon to
the spring that is in air, and the w^ant thereof in quicksilver. For that in air
there is a spring or elasticity, is now undoubted; but in water cleansed of air,
though many experiments have been attempted to that purpose, it has not yet
been found that there is any : and I am apt to think the like of quicksilver ;
though i do not know that this has been yet so rigorously examined. Now
supposing that matter, being at rest, will so continue till it be put in motion by
some force ; this force may be either that of percussion from some body already
in motion, which is the case when the quicksilver falls by shaking or striking
the tube; or of pulsion, from a contiguous body beginning to move, as by the
expansion of some adjacent spring, which is the case, when the springy parts of
the air, either left in unpurged, or re-admitted in the quicksilver, by expand-
ing themselves, put the quicksilver in motion ; or some conatus or endeavour of
its own, such as is that of a spring; and therefore if water and quicksilver be
not such, they will not on this account put themselves in motion.

Gravity or heaviness is, I know reputed to be such a conatus or proneness to
move downwards, and so to put itself in motion : and the wonder at present is,
why it does not so here. But if this which we call gravity, should chance to be
not a positive quality or conatus originally of itself, but only the effect of some

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, A*J

pulsion or percussion from without, which possibly may be the case, and principally
from the spring of the air about us; then while this pulsion and percussion is
wanting, the bodies accounted heavy will not of themselves begin to fall : which
seems to be the present case.

And this is the more considerable, because we cannot find what is the utmost
height at which the quicksilver, thus accumulated, will remain suspended; there
having been no height yet attempted, at which, if cleansed, it will not stand ;
and that of 75 inches, considering the weightiness of quicksilver, is a very great
one, being more than equivalent to 80 feet of water.

My Lord Brouncker a little alters the case, from what I take to be the hypo-
thesis of M. Huygens. For he supposes this purer part of the air to be of like
nature with the grosser part, which I think M. Huygens does not; and, though
finer than the rest, so as to penetrate glass, which the grosser will not ; yet of a
springy nature, as the grosser parts are: which therefore acts, not by its weight
only, but by its spring; and therefore when once entered, though in a small
proportion, acts as effectually, at its first entrance, as if the whole incumbent
air had admission ; its spring being of a like tensure with that of the outward
air. But M. Huygens's more subtile matter than air, though he must allow it
weight, yet whether he allow it a spring, I cannot tell ; nor does he inform us.
And when he says, this more subtile matter without difficulty penetrates glass,
water, quicksilver, and all other bodies, which we find impenetrable to air ; I
know not whether he mean, without any difficulty, or without great difficulty,
though with some.

But his Lordship, though he allow his springy subtile matter to penetrate
glass, yet not without difficulty ; and till it have some room made (as HD)
wherein it may recollect itself, cannot exert its spring, and therefore not while
top-full of cleansed quicksilver : but, so soon as some room is made for it :
whereas if the quicksilver be not purged of air, that little air remaining by its
spring begins the motion. He thinks it also not improbable, that a large but low
tube of glass, shorter than 29 inches, may stand top-full of quicksilver, though
with a small hole in the top, as at K ; at least, if immerged in water, in case air
be too subtile for our mechanics. He might also, suitably enough to his own
hypothesis, have so explained himself, as to allow his more subtile parts of com-
mon air to penetrate quicksilver, but not glass ; and therefore, in case of room
for it at HD, it might through the stagnant quicksilver, and that at C, pass
upwards to HD, and there exert its spring.

I shall forbear to dispute against this hypothesis for the present; because I
think it more proper to examine by experiment, whether well purged quicksilver
may not be made to stand higher than CI, the ordinary standard, suppose at ,

48 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I672.

CH, with a void space about it, as HD. For the issue of this experiment seems
very proper for determining this doubt; which therefore I am not willing to pre-
judge. There is yet another way of 'explaining the same hypothesis, without
allowing this subtile matter to pierce the glass, which is this: our common air
being an aggregate of very heterogeneous parts, we may well suppose some of
them to be springy, and others not to be so. The springy parts we may conceive
to be so many consistent bodies, like small hairs or springy threads, wrapped up
in different forms and variously entangled, and so as to form many vacuities capa-
ble of admitting some fluid matter, which may insinuate into those vacuities, as
water in a bundle of bushes, without disturbing the texture of those springy
'parts ; and which may press as a weight, but not as a spring. Now if in the Tor-
ricellian tube, there be a quantity of such springy matter, the spring hereof will
be of equal strength with that of external air, and therefore able to counter-
balance it, though its weight be much less, because admitted with such a tensure.
But if only an unspringy fluid, which presses only as a weight, not as a spring,
and this defended by the glass tube from any other pressure, save that of its own
weight ; it will still be too weak to force its own way, till its single weight be
equivalent to that with which it is to encounter ; which is, not only the springy
part of the air, but also that fluid unspringy part; which though it would give
way to a springy body pressing through it ; yet not to this fluid, like itself, and
destitute of such a spring; and is therefore able to keep it up to a much greater
height than it could do if uncleansed of springy air: so long at least as till some
springy body be admitted, or some concussion, equivalent to it, put it in motion ;
but being once in motion, it will so continue, as a bullet impelled by gunpowder,
or an arrow out of a bow, till stopped by some positive equiv^alent force.

I do not deny, but that this explication may be subject to some difliculties
and exceptions ; but I think fewer than that of allowing the glass penetrable by
this subtile matter. But the best way to settle this business, being some suitable
experiments; I should recommend these, or some of these experiments, to
those of the Royal Society, who are in that kind better provided than I am.

1 . That hinted by my Lord Brouncker, whether a large low tube, of less
height than the common standard, of about 29 inches English, or 27 inches
French, might be made to stand top-full of quicksilver, though a small hole be
left open at th^top; at least under water? I am apt to think, that it will rather
sink slowly and with a hifling noise, than fall suddenly and silently.

2. Whether of two polished marbles, or metalline plates, the lower will be
found to stick to the upper, in the exhausted receiver, longer than is account-
able for from the ordinary counter- balance In the TorriceUian experiment. For
though M. Huygens now, and Mr. Boyle, have long since intimated this from

VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. AQ

his own experience; yet I judge the experiment worth repeating. And if it be,
as I suppose it may, found to succeed, I should think, it may proceed from a
want of a spring or elastic power between the plates, to force them asunder;
and in particular that spirit of wine is not a springy body.

3. Whether a syphon of unequal legs will be made to run, in an exhausted
receiver, with water or quicksilver, at a greater height than is accountable for;
which though M. Huygens has tried it, I think it worth repeating in this So-
ciety. This when it does succeed, I take to proceed from the spring of that
Uttle remaining air in the receiver not quite emptied.

4. Which seems of a like nature with the former, whether a tube of greater
length than 29 inches, but so immerged as to be less than so much above the
level, as CE, may not, if filled with well cleansed quicksilver, be gently lifted
up with the quicksilver in it, not only to I, as when it is unpurged, but to H
or D, higher than the usual standard.

5. Which is equivalent, but more easily administered, whether if such a tube,
so filled, be at first so inclined, as CF, that its height above AB be less than
2g inches, may not be leisurely and gently erected, so as to remain full, not
only to the height of I, but of G or D ? 6. Whether cleansed quicksilver will,
in the open air, run in a syphon higher than 29 inches } 7- If not in the air,
whether it will so run, if the lower leg open into well-cleansed water ?

8. Which I do principally recommend; in a tube so filled with cleansed quick-
silver, as to stand top-full at a greater height than the usual standard, as CD;
in case some part be forced out, not by admission of air, but by jogging the
tube, suppose as much as HD, and a stop then made; whether the rest CH, at
a greater height than I, the usual standard, may be made so to stand of itself,
notwithstanding the voidance of HD .^ For by this experiment alone, if it suc-
ceed, it will appear, that it is not only want of room for the subtile matter to
recollect itself, which hinders the suspended quicksilver from falling ; but rather
the want of a spring to put it in motion. If it will not succeed, I should rather
think the springy air makes its way through the quicksilver, than through the
glass.

9. Whether cleansed quicksilver will remain suspended in an inverted tube,
at least a short one, and with a small orifice, though its orifice C be not immer-
ged in quicksilver, but either in the open air, or at least in water ? j 0. If so ;
then whether it will do the like, if, a little being forced out, there be some void
room left at the top at H D ?

These are nice experiments, and of some difficulty; but if carefully adminis-
tered, may be of good use in our search after the true nature of gravity: which
may possibly have a greater connexion with the spring of the air, than men are

VOL. II. H

50 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

aware of ; since on the presence or absence thereof doth mainly depend the fall-
ing or not falling of bodies accounted heavy. But I am not willing, by inter-
posing my own conjectures, to prejudge the experiments.

Account of Two Books, N^Ql, p.5170.

I. Observations Topographical, Moral and Physiological, made in a Journey
through part of the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France, by John Ray,
Fellow of the Royal Society ; whereunto is added a Brief Account of F. Wil-
loughby, Esq.; his Voyage through a great part of Spain, l673, in 8vo.

This Itinerary contains whatever is remarkable in those places, which the in-
genious and inquisitive Author travelled through. Let his reader be a States-
man, an ecclesiastic, a philosopher, an artist, a tradesman, a father of a family,
an husbandman, they will all of them find matter in this book very proper for
their respective genius, professions, and callings. Here is described the climate,
government, revenues, laws, customs, manners, tempers, abilities, studies, arts,
trades, and natural productions of the countries spoken of; and besides, divers
fabulous relations and ungrounded fancies refuted and rectified.

II. Bernhardi Vareni* M. D. Geographia Generalis ; in qua affectiones gene-
rales Telluris explicantur, summa cura quamplurimis in locis emendata, aucta et
illustrata, ab Isaaco Newtono Mathes. Professore Lucasiano apud Cantabrigien-
ses e Societate Regia. Cantabrigiae 1672, in 8vo.

* Bernard Varenius was a noted Dutch Physician, who died in 166O. The above ingenious
Treatise on Universal Geography, which was honoured with the attention of Sir Isaac Newton, in
his Lectures at Cambridge, has been also translated into English, in 2 vols. 8vo, with various notes
and emendations by Sir Isaac and Dr. Jurin, Varenius was also author of a curious description of
Japan, and the kingdom of Siam, in Latin j printed at Cambridge in l673.

END OF VOLUME SEVENTH OF THE ORIGINAL.

Discovery of Two New Planets about Saturn, and some Fixed Stars. By S.

Cassini. N°92, p. 5178. (Fol. Fill.)

About the end of Oct. 167I5 Saturn passed close by four small fixed stars,
visible only by a telescope, within the sinus of the water of Aquarius, disco-
vered in the same place within the space of 10 minutes, by a telescope of 17 feet,
made by Campani, eleven other smaller stars, one of which, by its particular

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 51

motion, showed itself to be a true planet : which we found by comparing it,
not only with Saturn and his ordinary satellite, discovered in l655 by Mr.
Huygens, but also with other fixed stars.

These observations show a motion of this new planet that is very manifest in
respect of the fixed stars, but less sensible in respect of Satum. Yet it appears,
that from Oct. 25, to Nov. 1, its distance from Saturn increased westward, and
from that time to Nov. 6, it diminished; so that its greatest digression from
Saturn happened in the beginning of Nov., and was found to be of 8 minutes,
or of lOJ diameters of Saturn's ring. Whence it followed, that if this planet
were a satellite of Saturn, it must be about the end of Sept. in the inferior part of
its circle, and at the beginning of Nov. in the superior part ; and that its revo-
lution about Saturn was of a long duration, since for 1 2 days together it not
only remained on the same western side of Saturn, but there was also little
change of apparent distance between them. The greatest digression of this
planet was treble to that of the ordinary satellite, and this enabled us to judge
the time of its revolution to be quintuple, applying to the satellites that propor-
tion which Kepler noted in the principal planets, between the periodical times
and their distances. *

We again got sight of Saturn, Nov. 12, l6, 17, ig, 23 ; but we could find no
appearance of the new planet. Dec. 1 6, we found that Saturn had resumed
his round figure, and that on the east of him there was a small star, far distant,
in a straight line with Saturn, and with his ordinary satellite, which was also
eastward, and but little distant from Saturn. And Dec. 24, we saw this satel-
lite in the west, and a star on the east, less distant from Saturn than that we
had seen the l6th. But the weather did not permit us to ascertain whether it
was the same. At length, Jan. 18, 23, 25, of the year 1672, we saw on the
west of Saturn, sometimes one star, sometimes many, far distant, almost in a
direct line with his ordinary satellite; which made us hope to see again the new
planet towards its greatest western digression. But these observations were the
last which the weather suffered us to make, before Saturn became lost in the
beams of the sun.

After my return from a journey to Provence, having brought with me from
Marseilles, in the beginning of Nov. 1672, an excellent telescope of 35 feet,
which Campani had made by order of his Majesty ; we set it up in the Royal
Observatory, directing it to Saturn, as soon as the weather would permit, to
look for the new planet. In the first observations, made Dec. 13 and 17, we
perceived a star to the west, remote from Saturn, which in both these obser-

* Namely, the squares of the periodical times, proportional to the cubes of tlie distances.

h2

52 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

vations had a southern latitude in respect to the line of his wings ; but in the
first it was further distant from Saturn than in the second.

We could not see Saturn again till the 23d of Dec. and then, in the presence
of Messrs. Huygens, Picard, Mariotte, Romer, and others of the Royal Aca-
demy of the Sciences, we found a small star westward of Saturn, between him
and his ordinary satellite, which was on the west also, almost at a double dis-
tance. And at that time we had no other reason to suppose it to be different
from the former, but that it had no latitude at all in respect of the line of Sa-
turn's wings. The weather did not suffer us to see Saturn again till the 30th of
Dec. and then we saw a little star on the east of him, without any latitude,
between him and his ordinary satellite, which had passed also to the east of him.
This observation, compared with the foregoing, kept us yet in suspense, because
we know not, whether this, which seemed to us the same with that of the fore-
going observation, had passed from one side of Saturn to the other, by only
one motion slower than that of the ordinary satellite, and consequently by a
little arch of a greater circle ; or whether, during this interval of time, it had
made one or more turns by a lesser circle ; which was Tnuch more agreeable to
the position in which it had appeared, without latitude, in both observations.

The Heavens were not favourable to us again till the 10th of Jan. l673; and
then this little star appeared to have returned almost to the same position in
respect of Saturn, and his ordinary satellite where it had been Dec. 23. We
wondered to have found three times successively, this small star between Saturn
and his ordinary satellite, always nearly equally distant from them both. But
our admiration ceased at the 4th observation, made Jan. 15, in which the ordi-
nary satellite was to the east, and the new one west, as it had beefn in the fore-
going, but a little nearer to Saturn. We had that evening time enough atten-
tively to observe this planet for a whole hour together, during which we per-
ceived it approached to Saturn on the west, and consequently was in the supe-
rior part of its circle ; which fully confirmed us in the supposition that it was an
interior satellite. Thus the pursuit of another satellite, which we knew to be
further distant from Saturn, and to have a longer period, made us discover this
which is nearer to it, and whose period is shorter.

Then it was, that comparing the observations together, we began to find the
nature of the motion of the new interior satellite. For the last two showed us,
that in 5 days it had made more than a whole revolution. The first observation
compared with the third, showed that in 1 8 days it had made a number of
revolutions, almost whole ones, which certainly were four; each of them of 4-i-
days: So that between the 10th and 15th it might be, that there had been one
revolution of 4-1- days, or two revolutions of 2i- days each. But the combination

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 53

of the first with the second, made us seclude the period of 2-^ days. We there-
fore judged, by these observations, that this last planet finishes its revolution
about Saturn in 4 -J- days; that the semidiameter of this circle is three semidia-
meters and a fourth of Saturn's ring; and that it was towards its greatest west-
ward digression the 23d of Dec. and Jan. 1, about 7 in the evening.

On these grounds, after the 4th observation, we made an epheineris of this
planet, which has served us since, until the occultation of Saturn, without having
found any other difference in the observations, but that, as for the nearest
planet, the return to the same place, after one revolution of 4-.^- days, is made
one hour later, so that one circuit is finished in 4 days and 13 hours. We
have also learned by the following observations, that when the interior satellite
is much distant from its great digressions, it has some southern latitude in re-
spect to the line of the wings in the upper semicircle, and some northern lati-
tude in the inferior; as has also the old satellite, which has more of it in propor-
tion to the diameter of its circle.

Our application to observe the planet nearest to Saturn, in the small time we
had at evenings, by reason of his proximity to the sun beams, had diverted us
from the other more remote planet. But Feb. 6, we began fo see it again, and
the weather favoured us well enough to observe it almost all the days following,
until the 20th of Feb. except the 9th and 18th. It was conveniently seen by
Campani's telescope of 17 feet, by which the first discovery of it had been
made ; and by another of 20 feet, made by Lebas, with which Mr. Picard ob-
served it also constantly, and sometimes in the company of Mr. Huygens and
Mr. Mariotte. The first observations of the distances were made by an estimate
of the eye, comparing the exterior satellite with Saturn and with the other
satellites. The last were made by the measure of the time between the passage
of the planet, and that of the centre of Saturn. This new planet more and
more removed from Saturn till the Qth of Feb. when we measured the difference
between its passage and that of the centre of Saturn, and found it 30 sec. of
an hour, which give at least 10 diameters of Saturn; but on the 20th, it was
already too near the beams of the sun to measure its distance; which yet by
estimate was judged greater than it had been the 1 Qth.

By the apparent swiftness of its motion during the first days, it is easy to see,
that this planet had been seen in conjunction with Saturn Feb. 3 ; and by its
motion on the west it appears, that it was in the inferior part of its circle: and
because, during this time of 17 days, it removed more and more from Saturn, it
is certain that it remained in the same quadrant of the inferior western circle
above 17 days, and that its whole time of revolution is more than 68 days. It
was these last days a,t a distance almost equal to that which it had about the end

54 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

of Oct. 167 1 , SO that in about 480 days it made a certain number of entire revo-
lutions, which can be no more than 7 ; since each of them is doubtless of more
than 68 days. If we count 7 of them, each would be 68-1- days : if we count 6,
each would be 80 days; if we count but 5, each would be 96 days. But this
last supposition can by no means be made to agree with the two observations of
Dec. 1672, and the first does not agree with them so well as the second. The
proportion of the apparent distances in the observations of Feb. which are the
best, would make us estimate each of its revolutions between 80 and 96 days ;
but the proportion of the greatest digression of 1671, compared with that of
the two other satellites, together with their periods, agrees better with 80 days.*
Therefore in the Ephemeris which we give of one revolution, we follow this,
until we get a more precise determination, which requires a greater number of
observations.

Extract of a Letter of David von der Beche, a German Philosopher and Physician
at Minden, concerning the Principles and Causes of the Volatilization of Salt of
Tartar and other Fixed Salts. Printed at Hamburgh, 1672. N° 92,
p. 5185.

By the volatilization of salt of tartar, is here meant the volatilization of the
tartareous acid from cream of tartar, (crystals of tartar, acidulous tartrite of pot-
ash) . It is unnecessary to notice any farther concerning this uninstructive che-
mical paper.

Observations on the Nature of Snotu. By Dr. Greiv. N° 92, p. 51 93.

If Aristotle and Descartes, he. who have written of meteors, and amongst
them of snow, have not yet given a full account of it; it will not be needless to
inquire further of it. He that will do this, will do it best, not by the pursuit of his
fancy in a chair, but with his eyes abroad; where if we use them well fixed, and with
caution, and this in a thin, calm, and still snow, we may by degrees observe: 1st,
with M. Descartes and Mr. Hook, that many parts of snow are of a regular figure ;
for the most part, as it were, so many little rowels or stars of 6 points ; being
perfect and transparent ice, as any we see on a pool or vessel of water. On each
of these 6 points are set other collateral points, and those always at the same
angles as are the main points themselves. Next, among these irregular figures,
though many of them are large and fair ; yet from these taking our first item,
many others, alike irregular, but much smaller, may likewise be discovered.

* Later observations have served to establish the period of revolution of this satellite, which is the
5th in order, at 73 days 7h. 48m.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 55

Again, among these not only regular, but entire parts of snow, looking still
more warily, we shall perceive that there are divers others, indeed irregular, yet
chiefly the broken points, parcels and fragments of the regular ones. Lastly,
that besides the broken parts, there are some others which seem to have lost
their regularity, not so much in being broken, as by various winds, first gently
thawed, and then frozen into little irregular clumps again.

From hence the true notion and external nature of snow seems to appear,
viz. that not only some few parts of snow, but originally the whole body of it,
or of a snowy cloud, is an infinite mass of icicles regularly figured ; that is, a
cloud of vapours being gathered into drops, the said drops forthwith descend;
on which descent, meeting with a soft freezing wind, or at least passing through
a colder region of air, each drop is immediately frozen into an icicle, shooting
itself forth into several points on each hand outward from its centre: but still
continuing their descent, and meeting with some sprinkling and intermixed
gales of warmer air, or in their continual motion and waftage to and fro, touch-
ing upon each other, some are a little thawed, blunted, frosted, clumpered,
others broken, but the most clung in several parcels together^ which we call
flakes of snow.

It being known what snow is, we perceive why, though it seems to be soft,
yet it is truly hard ; because true ice ; seeming only to be soft ; because on the
first touch of the finger on any of its sharp edges or points, they instantly thaw ;
otherwise they would pierce our fingers like so many lancets. Why again, though
snow be true ice, and so a hard and dense body, yet very light ; because of the
extreme thinness of each icicle in comparison of its breadth. Also how it is white,
not because hard; for there are many soft bodies white; but because consisting
of parts all of them singly transparent, but being mixed together appear white ;
as the parts of froth, glass, ice, and other transparent bodies, whether soft or hard.

Thus much for the external nature of snow; let us next a little inquire into
its essential nature. Now if we would make a judgment of this, I think we
may best do it by considering what the general figure of snow is, and compa-
ring the same with such regular figures as we see in divers other bodies. As
for the figure of snow, it is generally one, viz. that which is above described :
rarely of different ones, which may be reduced chiefly to two generals, circulars
and hexagonals, either simple or compounded together. More rarely, either
to be seen of more than 6 points; but if so, then not of 8 or 10, but 12. Or in
single shoots, as so many short slender cylinders, like those of nitre. Or by one
of these shoots, as the axle tree, and touching upon the center of a pair of pointed
icicles, joined together as the two wheels. Or the same hexagonal figure, and
of the same usual breadth ; but continued in thickness or profundity, like the

56 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

stone which Boetius calls Astroites. All these I say are rare, the first described
being the general figure.

As for the configurations of other bodies, we shall find that there are divers
which have some a less, others a more near resemblance to snow. Nitre is
formed into long cylindrical shoots, as also all lixivial salts for the most part,
resembling the several points of each starry icicle of snow. Salt of hartshorn,
sal ammoniac, and some other volatile salts, besides their main and longer shoots,
have others shorter branched out from them ; resembling as those the main, so
these the collateral points of snow. But the icicles of urine are still more near:
for in salt of hartshorn, although the collateral shoots stand at acute angles with
the main, yet not by pairs at equal height : and in sal ammoniac, although they
stand diametrically opposite, or at equal height, yet at right angles : whereas in
the icicles of urine, they stand at equal height, and at acute angles both; in both,
like those of snow. And it is observable, that the configuration of feathers is
likewise the same. The reason whereof is, because fowls have no organs for
evacuation of urine, and the urinous parts of their blood are evacuated by the
habit of skin, where they produce and nourish feathers.

From hence it should seem, that every drop of rain, containing in itself some
spirituous particles, and meeting with others in their descent, of a saline, and
that partly nitrous, but chiefly urinous, or of an acido-salinous nature ; the said
spirituous parts are intercepted by them, and with those the watery, and so the
whole drop is fixed.

On the Strange Freezing noticed in Numb. QO. By Dr. TVallis. N° 92,

p. 5196.

The extraordinary freezing which happened in Somersetshire in Dec. last,
was similar with us at Oxford. It was rather a raining of ice, or at least rain
freezing as it fell ; which made strange icicles hanging on trees, and a noise by
the rattling of them on the boughs moved by the wind. Yet more in the coun-
try about us it seems, than with us here. And the great warmth soon after
was also with us; insomuch that not only blossoms, but as it is said, green
apples on divers trees; particularly in the parish of Holywell.

An Account of two Books. N° 92, p. 51 97.

I. Tracts written by the Honourable Robert Boyle, containing New Experi-
ments touching the Relation betwixt Flame and Air, and about Explosions : An
Hydrostatical Discourse, occasioned by some Objections of Dr. Henry Moore,
&c. ; To which is annexed an hydrostatical Letter, about a way of weighing

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5/

water in water: new Experiments of the positive or relative Levity of Bodies
under water; of the Air's Spring on Bodies under water: and about the dif-
ferent Pressure of heavy Solids and Fluids. London, 1672, in 8vo.

These tracts being well known to philosophers, but little need now be said
concerning them, especially after the long and particular title.

In the third part, he discusses at large and solves this problem: whence it is,
that urinators or divers are so far from being killed or oppressed by the weight
of the incumbent and ambient water, that they are not so much as hurt by it.
Concerning which he says it is taken for granted, that divers, though at ever
so great a depth, feel no pressure against them by the water, which he says is-
an aftirmation in point of fact, of whose truth he makes some question. To
this hydrostatical discourse our author subjoins a letter, illustrating an experi-
ment to weigh water in water, on account of some exceptions made to it by
Mr. George Sinclair, in his hydrostatics, lately printed at Edinburgh. On which
occasion the editor of these papers finds himself obliged to take notice of a
pamphlet annexed to this book of Mr. Sinclair's, called a Vindication of the
Preface of the book, intitled Georgii Sinclari, &c. Ars nova et magna Gravitatis
et Levitatis, from the challenges and reflections of the publisher of the Phil.
Trans, as they are to be found in Numb. 50, Aug. 16, 1669. Not to reflect,
as it deserves, on the artifice of leaving this pamphlet out of the copy, that was
presented by Mr. Sinclair to Sir R. Moray, a person whom he knows to be very
far from allowing his pretences in the preface here questioned ; the editor
firstof all desires the reader to observe, how grossly Mr. Sinclair prevaricates in
his pretended vindication, when he asserts that the MS. of Ars nova et magna,
&c. was not committed by the author to the judgment of the Royal Society,
omitting the main part, contained in these words, which (recording) is yet
their constant and careful practice to do in all things of that nature. For if this
had been taken in by Mr. Sinclair, he must certainly have thought none but
such as are wholly ignorant of the candor and justice of that illustrious body,
and of the care of the sworn secretaries thereof, would believe him in what he
so boldly and immorally asperses them with, viz. that it was the interest of them,
who had taken out the purposes of his MS. to procure it should not be re-
corded in the register; unless it should be said that the registry had been in this
only case purposely omitted at the solicitation of the pretended plagiaries; and
who they are, has not yet been declared by M. Sinclair: who, in the next place,
might do well to consider, not only how much, before his pompous Ars nova et
magna came abroad, had been printed of the doctrine of the air's pressure, and
likewise how well was known the way of counterpoising air with quicksilver in
glass tubes; but also that in this so generally inquisitive and experimental age,

VOL. II, I

58 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

it not iinfrequently happens that learned men, proceeding in their researches on
solid principles, though they reside in places far distant from one another, and
without any mutual communication or knowledge of their respective studies,
yet happen to light upon and discover the same things and truths ; as may
easily be made out by undeniable proofs in the matter of curve lines found equal
to straight ones; in the doctrine of motion; in the anatomy of plants, &c. And
having said thus much, if M. Sinclair still persists in the good opinion he has of
himself, we shall leave him still to enjoy it; though we think it may be much
sunk by this time. — In the 4th tract our author endeavours experimentally to
show, that, though not only the peripatetic schools, but the generality of phi-
losophers both ancient and modern, as well as the vulgar, ascribe the ascension
of lighter bodies in water to an internal principle, by them called positive levity ;
yet we need not admit any such thing for the true and adequate cause of the
emersion of wood and such lighter bodies, put under water. — In the 5th he adds
to the proofs, already given of the power of the spring of the air, some of the
operations he has discovered it to have on bodies placed under water. In doing
which he employs two sorts of trials, showing, that a small quantity of inclosed
air may by its pressure have a considerable operation on bodies covered with
water, notwithstanding the interposition of the liquor ; which pressure may be
manifested, both by what it directly and positively operates upon bodies under
water ; and by the things that regularly ensue upon the removal of the inclosed
air, or the weakening of its spring. — In the 6th and last, the author consider-
ing that it has proved a great impediment to men's freely acquiescing in the
doctrine founded on the phaenomena of his physico-mechanical experiments,
that if the atmosphere could really exercise so great a pressure, as he ascribes to
it, it would unavoidably oppress and crush all the bodies exposed to it : he
therefore employs in this tract divers weighty considerations and remarkable
experiments, to remove the force of that plausible objection.

II. Esperienze intorno a diverse cose naturali, et particolarmente d quelle che
ci son portate dall' Indie; fatte da Francesco Redi. In Fir. 1671, in 4to.

This learned author, desirous of examining many traditions about natural
things, begins with certain snake-stones, described by various authors, found in
the head of some serpents in the East Indies, and believed to be a sure antidote
against the biting or stinging of venomous animals, when applied to the wound,
to which it is said they will stick very fast, till they have imbibed the poison ;
which done, they will fall off: all which is invalidated by the author upon
many trials.

He next takes notice of several things that produce real effects, but not
always, by reason of some impediments intervening. Ex. gr. That aqua-vitae

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5^

swims upon olive oil ; effects of the distillations of water in various vessels ; of
fulminating powders ; of the oil of tobacco ; of the torpedo fish ; of water-
newts, eagle-stones, &c. ; of the strong digestive power of fowls ; of the blood
and horn of the rhinoceros, of stags horns ; of pimento, Chinese fennel, sassa-
frass, Peruvian bark, ginseng, &c.

Description and Management of the Cacao-tree * N° 93, p. 6007.

The body of the cacao is about 4 inches in diameter, 5 feet in height, and
above 1 2 from the ground to the top of the tree. These trees are very differ-
ent from each other; for some shoot up in 2 or 3 bodies; others in one. Their
leaves are many of them dead, and most discoloured, unless on very young
trees. The number of cods the tree produces is uncertain : but we reckon a
bearing tree yields from 2 to 8 pounds of nuts a year; and each cod contains
from 20 to 30 nuts.

Cacao was originally of these [the West] Indies and wild. Towards Ma-
racajo are divers spots of it in the mountains ; and I am informed, the Portu-
guese have lately discovered whole woods of it up the river of Maranon.

Inquiries concerning Stones and other Materials for the Use of Building ; and on
the Art of hardening and tempering Steel for cutting Porphyry and other hard
Marbles. N° 93, p. 6010.

There is a sort of grey free-stone at Paris, every where on the south-side of
the river Seine, rather of a coarse grit, and so soft when first taken out of the
quarry, that it is dressed and hewn with broad sharp axes, almost as easily as
dried clay; but it grows harder and harder in the air, very durable, and fit for
building. The Portland stone is of a fine chalky grit, fit for all curious hewn
and carved work, though not for water or fire. On the contrary, the free-
stone in Kent, is of a whitish grey colour, lasts well in air and water; its grit
less fine and chalky, than that of Portland. The Derbyshire freestone, though
it endure the fiercest fire, is brittle, and consequently unfit for fine and curious
workmanship.

Concerning marbles. Query, whether Salisbury marble be a true, though
coarse, natural marble ? Whether blue marbles, coming much from Genoa and
Leghorn as ballast, be harder than white marble, but take not so good a polish?

* The cacao, or chocolate- tree, is the theobroma cacao of Linnaeus, and is elegantly figured in
Madam Merian's celebrated work on tlie Surinam insects, pi, 60, It is also represented in Cate»by's
Carolina, appendix, pi. 6.

I 2

60 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

Whence comes the best black marble ? Whether porphyry differ in nothing
from marbles, but in hardness ?

Query, the ways of making artificial marble ; and whether that with which
the Elector of Bavaria has adorned his whole palace at Munich, so as to look as
rich and beautiful as any palace in Italy, is made, as some afiirm, of such gypsmn
as composes the plaster of Paris, which being put over the fire and let boil till
it cease of itself, after being cooled is kept dry for use ; mixing painters colours
with it for tinging or colouring it according to pleasure, and using it as the
burnt gypsum is at Paris ? Beside several other inquiries concering stones,
quarries, coal, &c ; and then concludes, that it would be useful to retrieve the
art of hardening and tempering steel for cutting of porphyry, &c. ; which the
Egyptians were masters of, of old, and after them the Greeks and Romans : in-
somuch that the neat and curious hewing and carving of obelisks, colosses,
statues, pots, urns, as also porphyry and other hard marbles, is now the object
of admiration to the most skilful workmen, who know not which way to rough
hew stones of that untractable hardness.

On the Advantage of Virginia for Ship building, by a Gentleman. N° 93,

p. 6015.

The country of Virginia abounds every where with large and tall oaks, of at
least 50 or 60 feet in height, of clear timber, without boughs or branchings ;
being very fit to make plank of any size, very tough, and excellently well
enduring the water. — With abundance of pines for masts, no country, that we
know in the world, is better stored than Virginia. Besides there is another sort
of wood, called cypress, which is far better than any pine for masts, it being of
as tough and springy a nature as yew-tree ; bending beyond credit ; when dry,
much lighter than fire, and so well lasting in wet and dry, that it seems rather
to polish than perish in the weather. — The same country affords great abund-
ance of old pine for making rosin, pitch and tar. — The conveniency of planting
hemp for cordage and sail-cloths in that country is so great, that England might
in a short time be supplied, without being beholden to other nations for it. —
To these particulars add the great abundance of iron-stone in Virginia, which
has already been tried and found very good ; the conveniency of wood and lime-
stone being a great inducement to the making of iron, which might be done at
a much less rate there than here.

To make Vines groiv to advantage, all over the Roof of a House. By Mr. John

Templer. N° 98, p. 6016.

He lets vines ascend by one single stem to the eaves of his house, cutting off

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. (5l

all the luxuriant branches by the way ; then gives them liberty to spread upon
the tiles, all over one side the roof of his house. Thus he furnishes his dwell-
ing house, and many out-houses ; by which means the vines are no hindrance
to the other wall-fruit, and the rays of the sun being almost direct upon the
vines, he has riper, sweeter and greater plenty of grapes, than when the vines
are placed as wall trees.

On the Motion of the Hearts of two Urchim, after their being cut out. By
Mr. John Templer. N° 93, p. 6016.

I cut out the hearts of two urchins ; whereupon I found the systole and
diastole to continue full two hours, while the hearts lay upon a glased earthen
w^hite plate, in a cold window. The distance of their diastoles was unequal in
time, but very large for half an hour, and then sensibly diminishing until they
ceased at the two hours end ; and would not then be reinforced by a needle's
point, which for the half hour preceding they would answer at any time.

After the hearts had ceased above 4- of an hour, so as a needle pricking them
caused no motion ; yet upon setting the plate on the hearth in the chimney, in
about two minutes they began to beat, though but weakly ; and upon eight
minutes continuance they beat freely ; and when removed into the window
again, continued their pulsation, without pricking, above an hour ; and might
have done longer, could they have been attended to. Perhaps we may hence
conjecture the cause of life and death. And when shall we say then, any animal
or insect is dead if it has motion ?

Observations on Turkey. N° 93, p. 60i7.

A disease reigns in the country about Aleppo, and as far as Bagdat, that at-
tacks both sexes, all ages, and strangers as well as natives. It is commonly
called II mal d' Aleppo, and appears to be in the skin a small pustule, hard and
red, the head scarcely larger at the beginning than the point of a pin ; afterwards
growing, and being nourished by five or six little roots or fibres, it goes on to
its height for the space of about 6 months ; and in as many more declines again.
So that the whole period of this disease is generally comprised within the space
of one year. This pustule has hitherto yielded to no remedies^ neither in the
beginning, middle, nor decline. It is wholly to be left to nature ; and by doing
so, there is no pain or trouble in it. It affects people not once only but often,
and it seizes on several parts of the body ; and when on the face, causes a re-
markable scar, which yet by little and little vanishes.*

* The cause of tliis species of cutaneous disease ]:eiTiains still a matter of conjecture. Is it produced
by some animal belonging to the tribe of insects or worms ? Dr. Russell, in his history of Aleppo, has
mentioned tlie mercurial plaster as the best remedy against it.

62 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

As to fevers at and about Aleppo, though they have the same type there as
in England ; yet there are two things peculiar in them. One is, that in acute
fevers, cold sweat commonly signifies recovery, but hot sweat portends death.
The other is, that in such acute fevers even an intermitting pulse denounces no
danger.

The leprosy, which anciently was so frequent a malady in these countries, is
now scarcely to be found there ; though at Damascus there is still an hospital
standing, formerly built for the relief of persons so diseased.

The reason why the city of Constantinople, is so much subject to the plague
is, according to some, owing to the multitude of slaves, yearly brought by the
Black Sea, and their hard diet and usage : according to others, it is owing to
the common people, feeding for the greatest part of summer on cucumbers and
melons, and drinking water upon them, without the use of helps to correct the
crudities. But the physicians generally conclude, that tlie air of Constantinople
is infected by the north-east winds, which blow commonly for 3 months, be-
ginning about the summer solstice^ arising from unwholesome marshes in
Tartary and Muscovy.

Besides the other uses of opium in Turkey, it is common in Arabia, to cure
horses with it of the griping of the guts.

As to the way of dressing leather in Turkey, it is to be observed, that their
leather is not so strong and serviceable as that in England. And though it be
commonly said, that the leather in these parts, though thin and supple, will hold
out water ; yet this is to be understood, that the Turks in their winter-boots,
between the lining and the leather, put a sear cloth ; which being curiously
sowed in the seams, will keep out water, though you put them in it for some
hours together. In cleaning their leather, they use lime and album Graecum ;
and instead of bark of trees, they employ valonia, a sort of acorn. I am per-
suaded that our acorns in England, if they could be spared for it, would per-
form the like effect, and perhaps better; seeing that the valonia often burns the
leather so much as to make it almost useless.

An Account of two Boohs. N° QS, p. 6019.

I. Vini Rhenani, imprimis Baccaracensis, Anatomia Chymica, a Joh. Davide^
Portzio Phil, et Med. D. Heidel. 1672, in 12mo

The processes followed in the making of foreign wines are detailed in so many
publications of modern times, that it cannot be necessary to lay before our
readers the description here given of the method of making rhenish wine.

II. De Poematum Cantu et Viribus Rythmi. Oxon. 1673, in 8vo.

The author of this treatise^ who is the noted Isaac Vossius^ endeavours to

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 63

prove, that the music of the ancients is far to be preferred to that of our age,
forasmuch as speech, how powerful soever at this day, yet, when put into a
song, or rendered musical, is not of that efficacy in moving our senses, as it
was in times of old. The reasons of which he endeavours to explain.

Among many other remarks, are the following curious ones. He laments
the cessation amongst musicians, of that great power of moving the affections,
for more than a thousand years ago. Observing further, that those motions
have so great a power, that, even without any voice and sound, they can raise
affections more strongly than any voice or oration. For the proof of which he
alleges the ancient pantomimi, whose feet and hands he makes no less eloquent
than the tongues of orators ; witness Cicero, who used to contend with Roscius,
the stage-player, which of the two should most vary the same sentence, the one
by words, the other by gestures ; hence our author affirms, that if we employed
as much labour and time in learning the pantomimical art, as we do in learning
a language, we might possibly come to express our mind and thoughts as clearly
by that way, as now we do by the aid of a language : nor does he think that
mankind would suffer any thing by it, if the pest and confusion (these are his
own words) of so many tongues were banished, and, instead of them, this sole
art of the pantomimes were known by all mankind, and men explained every
thing by signs, nods, and gestures ; on account of which he thinks the condi-
tion of brutes to be much better than that of men, seeing they signify without
an interpreter their sense and thoughts more readily, and perhaps better, than
any men can do.

Also, the skill of exploring the internal affections of the body by touch alone,
as we perceive the external motions by the eye. Where our author exceedingly
commends the skill of the Chinese physicians in finding out, not only that the
body is diseased, (which he says is all that our practitioners know by it) but
also, from what cause or from what part the sickness proceeds. In short, to
make ourselves masters of this skill, he would have us labour in exploring the
nature of men's pulses, till they become as well known and as familiar to us, as
a harp or lute is to the players thereon; it not being enough for them to know,
that there is something amiss which spoils the tune, but they must also know
what string it is which causes that fault.

On this occasion the editor thinks it will not displease the reader here to in-
form him, that he lately saw a letter written from Java in the East Indies,
mentioning an Indian treatise, much talked of, concerning the art and method
of knowing diseases and their events by the sole beating of the pulse : and that
some curious persons in that island had already written to some religious men

64 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l673.

in China, desiring them to spare no pains in procuring it : to promote which a
sum of money had been sent thither, for a reward to the translators.

The contemptibleness of the modern music to him is such, that he says there
is hardly so much as the shadow of the pristine majesty of it remaining; wonder-
ing that those, who in this and the former age have written of music, have writ-
ten nothing of the rhyme, or have done it so that they seem to have been
altogether ignorant of what it is; regarding nothing but to please the ear;
whereas to affect the mind, it is necessary the sound should signify what may be
understood by the mind, without which there can be raised no true pleasure,
nor any strong affection. He adverts to the excellence of the Chinese music,
though that people complain of the loss of their ancient way of singing, which
if they do justly, our author scruples not to affirm, that their music must have
been divine, seeing the present state of it is so excellent, that they may easily
silence all the music of Europe. The rare contrivance for rendering even and
strong sounds, of the old Roman hydraulic organ, described by Hero and Vitru-
vius, and explained by our author, and by him declared to excel our organs,
yielding an unequal and weak blast. The art of the ancients in making such
tibias or pipes of so many different forms and figure as there are kinds of affec-
tions ; concerning which he affirms, that there is none to be found at this day,
that even know how to make such pipes as are able to produce such m.otions;
since our modern artificers, in his opinion, fail not only in the matter of which
those instruments are to be made, but also in the proportion which is to be ob-
served in their form.

Demonstration of the Synchronism of the Vibrations in a Cycloid, By a Person
of Quality * N° 94, p. 6032. Translated from the Latin.

Let ab, be, cd, de, ef, &c. (fig. 1 . pi. 2), be mutually equal; and b 1, c2, d3,
64, f5, &c. increase equally as the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7 , 9, &c. I say, that any
heavy body, falling from any point of this line, will arrive at the lowest point in
the same space of time, in which it would arrive at it, if the body should fall
from any other point of the line. For if you put a = ab = be = cd, &c, and
Zj = bl, also jr for any number of the others: then, putting xa for af, xxb
must represent f J", and then the time of descent must necessarily be —- — or — ;

^ -^ XX aa aa

and the same holds in all cases. Therefore, &c.

I say farther, that this curve is the cycloid : which is easily demonstrated from
the construction, and from what was just now hinted; viz. that this curve

* Lord Viscount Brouncker. See the Paper^ more fully demonstrated in Birch's Hist, of the
Royal Society, Vol. I, p. 70.

VOL. Tin.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 65

abcdefz is equal to double the last right line, 2zw; and that aw is equal to
half the circumference of the circle, whose diameter is zw; also universally, that
the triangle T b n represents the right line zw ; and the square T b 1125, tiie
curve abcdefz; and the quadrant y" y 25 represents the right line aw; and
the parts of one respectively the parts of the other. As, if T— ^ represents
£^y then ^£^^25 will represent a^, and T— ^25 will represent af. — I say
lastly, that a ball suspended by a string of a proper length, and vibrating between
two cycloids, describes or moves in a cycloid. Consequently these vibrations
are synchronous. Q. E. D.

Observations of Jupiter s Transits near some Fixed Stars; useful for determining
the Inclination of that Planet to the Ecliptic. By Mr. Flamsteed. N° 94,
p. 6033.

The inclosed paper contains some observations of Jupiter, which being made
from a more convenient station than I commonly have used, are more accurate
than my former ones: and the planet being in a fit place of his orbit, they are
the most useful for determining his inclination to the ecliptic, that we can
again expect these six years, or perhaps before he returns again to this place.
Had the latitudes of the fixed stars of Tycho's constitution been exact and co-
herent, we should easily have determined the precise quantity of this inclination,
and those regular inequalities we find in this and in all the other planets, which
are irrepresentable by numbers, only by reason of some latent errors in the places
and latitudes of the fixed.

It would be a task deserving the pains and accuracy of the learned Cassini, and
of all others that have good observatories and instruments, to endeavour the
restoring of the fixed stars, especially of those that are near the ecliptic. Had
I only a convenient place for observing, a ready assistant, and other necessary
accommodations, I should not doubt in a few nights to rectify many of Tycho's
errors ; and to add some stars to his catalogue, as well visible to the bare eye,
yet omitted, as telescopical ones.

I have made lately some observations of the utmost elongations of the three
innermost satellites ; which I find greater than Signor Cassini states them, but
almost the very same with Mr. Townley's. But I have just cause to suspect
some eccentricity in the third ; fori find its elongation greater on the one hand
of Jupiter, than on the other.. I intend, at another opportunity, to make more
trials as carefully as I can, either to confirm or destroy this observation.

The observations are omitted, as not now of any use.

VOL. II. K

00 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1673.

Some Observations made hy a Microscope, contrived by M. Leetcenhoek* in Hol-
land, lately communicated by Dr. Regnerus de Graaf. N° 94, p. 6037.

1. The mould upon skin, flesh, or other things, has been by some repre-
sented to be shot out in the form of the stalks of vegetables, so as that some of
those stalks appeared with round knobs at the end, some with blossom-like
leaves. But I observe that such mould shoots up first with a straight transpa-
rent stalk, in which stalk is driven up a globous substance, which for the most
part places itself at the top of the stalk, and is followed by another globule, driving
out the first either sideways or at the top ; and that is succeeded by a third and

* Antony Van JCeewenhoek, so highly celebrated for his curious microscopical observations, was
a Dutch gentleman, of Delph in Holland. He was born in the year l632, and died in 1723, aged
91 years, Leewenhoek was not, properly speaking, a man of letters,* but from the extraordinary
assiduity with which he pursued his researches into the minuter parts of Nature, and tlie striking
novelty of the curious observations which he published, his name is perhaps more frequently quoted
by philosophers and naturalists, than that of any other writer of his time. This celebrated observer
had the good fortune to live at a period, when the instrument, by which he obtained his fame, was
yet in some degree in its infancy. He applied himself witli unremitted care to tlie grinding and
polishing into a state of perfection the simple lens, as being the best calculated for accurate investiga-
tion} and less liable to those deceptions which a composition of glasses sometimes occasions. So many
and so extraordinary were the discoveries of Leewenhoek, that he may be said to have brought into
view a new world in science ; and such was the general truth and fidelity of his observations and
descriptions, and the respect paid to his communications, that he has been not unaptly complimented
with the title of the Delphic Oracle.f Yet, if his works be inspected with critical attention, tliey
will be found by no means free from considerable errors ; and he sometimes appears to have de-
ceived himself in a very singular manner. Thus, according to Boerhaave, he once maintained that
tlie veins had a pulsation and tlie arteries none. He is said to have been a person of amiable manners,
and of great integrit)'^ of character. At his decease he bequeathed, as a legacy to the Royal Society,
a curious collection of some of his best microscopes, to the number of twenty six. These were all
prepared by his own hand, and were mounted in small silver frames. A description of them may be
found in Vols, 32 and 41 of the Philosophical Transactions, as well as in Baker's work, entitled
E7nployment for the Microscope.

* This seems admitted by his panegyrical poet.

" Quoque magis mirer, duris exercita fatis,
" Arctaque, nee studiis apta juventa fuit."
It is also confirmed by a letter from a Mr. Molineux, inserted in the 4th volume of Dr. Birch's History of the Royal
Society, in which Leewenhoek is expressly said to have understood no language but his own.

f " Rursus apud Batavos fundunt oracula Delphi ;
" Hie habitat Phoebus, Grsecia muta jacet.
" Hie habitat Phoebus ; non iste per ora Sibyllae

" Doctus apud vanos non nisi vana loqui :
** Clarior et melior, solidas qui condidit artes,
* ' Delphos ingenii fertilitate beat."

Leewenhoekii, Opera Omnia,
Lugd. Batav. 1722,

TOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 67

more such globules ; all which make up at last one great knob on the stalk, a
hundred times thicker than the stalk itself. And this knob indeed consists of
nothing else than of many small roundish knobs, which being multiplied, the
large knob begins to burst asunder, and then represents a kind of blossoms with
leaves.

2. The sting of a bee I find of a different form than has been described by
others. I have observed in it two other stings, that are lodged within the thick-
ness of the first sting, each having its peculiar sheath.

3. Further, I observe, on the head of a bee before, two artus or limbs with
teeth, which I call scrapers, conceiving them to be the organs with which the
bee scrapes the waxy substance from the plant. Besides, 1 find two other limbs,
each having two joints, which I call arms, with which I believe this insect per-
forms its work and makes the combs. There is also a little body which I call
the wiper, being rough, and exceeding the other limbs in thickness and length,
by which I am apt to believe the bee wipes the honey substance from the plant.
All which five limbs the bee, when at work, lays in a curious manner close under
her head, in very good order.

4. As to the eye of the bee, which I have taken out of the head, exposing its
innermost part to the microscope; I find, that the bee receives her light just
with the same shadow as we see the honey-combs : whence I collect, that the
bee works not by art or knowledge, but only after the pattern of the light re-
ceived in the eye.

5. In a louse I observe indeed, as others have done, a short tapering nose
with a hole in it, out of which that insect, when it will draw food, thrusts its
sting, which, to my eye, was at least five and twenty times less than one single
hair. But I find the head every where else very close round about, and without
any such sutures as some have represented it. The skin of the head is rough,
resembling a skin that has many dents in it. In the two horns I find five joints,
others having marked but four. One claw of her foot is of the structure of that
of an eagle, but the other of the same foot stands out straight and is very
small; and between these two claws there is a raised part or knob, the better to
clasp and hold fast the hair.

Extract of a Letter from M. Denys, at Paris, announcing an Admirable Liquor
instantly Stopping the Blood of Arteries pricked or cut, without any Suppura"
tion, or ivithout leaving any Scar or Cicatrice. N° 94, p. 603Q,

We are now busy, by the king's order, in making experiments, whence the
world is likely to receive great benefit. There has been found out here an admi-

k2

68 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1673.

rable essence, which being appHed to any artery whatsoever, stops the blood
instantly without any need of binding up the wound. We first tried it on dogs,
cutting the crural and carotid arteries, and the thigh itself; and the blood stopped
in less time than it needs to read this letter. This remedy is not corrosive ; the
wound healing without any scar, suppuration, or cicatrice. We have also made
trials on men, of whom the temporal arteries were opened, and on others whose
hands and face had been cut: and they succeeded equally with them.

You may judge how useful this essence is likely to prove in armies, where most
men die for want of a good remedy to stop the blood. This liquor works not
only outwardly, but also being taken inwardly; for it stops the loss of blood in
fasminis, inveterate fluxes of blood, open haemorrhoids, and other haemorrhages.
Now that this remedy has been well tried in the presence of all the court, and
many of our best physicians and surgeons that have admired it; the King has
given a privilege to sell it in his armies, and throughout the whole kingdom.*

Of a Certain Poivder for rendering Metal smooth and close, and of easier Car-'

riage, &c. N'^ 94, p. 604O.

This was lately communicated to the editor by a German physician, and is as
follows : —

1 . The powder I speak of, makes the metal so close and smooth, that it leaves
not the least pit in the piece, and that a gun so cast needs no boring. 2. One
third of the metal may be spared. 3. Such guns remain clean and neat a long
while.

In<the year 1672, July 9, there was cast a demy cannon, weighing 34 cwt.
This being tried with a bullet of 34 lbs. weight, there was employed the first
time 12 lbs. of powder, the second time as much, the third time 15 lbs., and the
fourth time 24 lbs. strong powder; all which trials it indured very well. Besides,
not long since there was cast a small petar of only two lbs. of this metal, with
which I broke in pieces a beam of a foot square, the petar remaining entire and
perfect.

When there is occasion to carry these pieces over land, there will not need so
many horses by far as usual. And in great ships, that are sometimes mounted
with 100 guns each, of the matter of 200 you may make 300 guns, performing
the same if not a better efFe6l. It is not only easy to make, but also of small
expence.

* Various styptics have at different times been proposed for stopping haemorrhages, both internal
and external, but where the latter arise from a puncture or division of a large artery, no remedy can
be safely trusted to, but that of passing a ligature round the ruptured or divided vessel. It will be seen,
however, in the subsequent pages, that the styptic here mentioned was in great repute for a time.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. CQ

Extracts of Two Letters from Dr. Swammerdam, concerning some Animals, that
having Lungs are yet found to be without the Arterious Vein, (Pulmonary Ar •
tery)y together with some other curious Particulars. Dated Amsterdam, Jan,
24, 1673. Translated from the Latin. N° 94, p. 6040.

In my late dissections I have met with animals, which, although they are
provided with lungs, are nevertheless destitute of the vena arteriosa (pulmonary
artery) ; so that the blood is sent directly from the heart to every part of the
body, without previously undergoing a circulation through the lungs. *

I have been much astonished to find, that the genital organs in the scarabaeus
nasicornis, exactly resemble those of man, in respect to the vasa testicularia ;
which consist of a single tube of great length, formed into innumerable convo-
lutions; with this difference however from the human subject, that the said
tube is closed at its beginning or apex, (principio seu apice caeco). Thus
throughout every part of the creation, even in the meanest of animated beings,
the marks of Divine Wisdom, and of the most exquisite workmanship are ap-
parent.

[Thus far Mr. Swammerdam in his 1st letter; whereupon being desired
to mention those animals that are destitute of the vena arteriosa, (pulmonary
artery), he very obligingly sent in a 2d letter, dated Amsterdam, March \A,
1673, the following observations:]

As I perceive that my communications are not unacceptable to the Royal

Society, I readily comply with their request ; and the more so, as I wish to give
others an opportunity of investigating a subject so interesting, that thus the
hidden treasures of Nature may be the sooner brought to light.

No person, I imagine, after what has been published by Malpighi and Need-
ham on this subject, will deny that frogs have lungs, and that they respire. Yet
have they no vena arteriosa: hence their blood is not circulated through the
lungs, but is sent directly from the simple sinus of their heart to every part of
the body, without having any thing to do with the lungs. This I conceive to
be a good argument among others, for restoring, (as I mean to do at some future
time), the office of sanguification to the liver. -(-

But there is evidently an artery (analogous to the bronchial or rather the pul-
monary artery), in the investing membrane of the lungs in frogs. This artery is

* It is true, (as Haller obsen^es), that frogs have no artery going directly from the heart to the
lungs; but they have evidently pulmonary arteries which arise out of the aorta.

f As these animals have a pulmonary artery, which arises out of the aorta, this argument does not
hold.

'JO PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I673.

distributed over the surface of their kings in a wonderful manner, so as to resem-
ble a beautiful net-work ; and its minute branches strike into the interior vesi-
cles, where the eye may trace the anastomosings with the pulmonary vein. This
vein is twice as large as the artery. It is situated in the cavity of the lungs, (in
pulmonum cavo), and especially in the margins or borders of the vesicles, from
whence its capillary and almost; invisible ramuli are distributed to all the cells,
and even to the investing membrane itself.

The animals which I suspect to possess the same pulmonary structure with
frogs, are toads, lizards, serpents, the chamaelion, tortoises, the salamandra
aquatica, &c. but these I have not yet had opportunities of dissecting and exa-
mining. I must therefore be contented with having pointed them out to other
abler inquirers.

As I perceive you were pleased with my observations on the organs of genera-
tion in the scarabasus nasicornis, I have thought it right to transmit to the Society
a drawing thereof; wherein are represented the testicles composed of a single
tube, 2 feet 6 inches long; the vasa deferentia, out of which drops a quantity
of white seminal liquor, whenever they are cut or punctured ; six vesiculae or
rather glandulae seminales, extremely elegant ; and the ducts which proceed from
the glandulae seminales, containing a yellowish seminal liquor, as in men and
brutes.

J[7i jiccount of some Booh. N° 94, p. 6042.

I. La Statique, ou La Science des Forces Mouvantes, par le P. Ignace Gaston
Pardies. A Par. 1673, in l-Zmo.

The learned Author of this book had proposed to himself to write a whole
body of mechanics, such a one as might be adapted to ordinary capacities; con-
ceiving that there had not been extant hitherto a complete system of that science ;
or if there had, it was beyond the reach of most readers: w^hich latter he thinks
to be the character due to Dr. Wallis's 3 vols, de Motu et Mechanice. But
since the publication of this part of it, vve understand that he has been prevented
and cut off by an untimely death ; being regretted by those that knew his frank-
ness and strong inclination to promote philosophical knowledge.

IL Antoniile Grand Hi storia Naturae. Lond. 1673, inSvo.

The learned author of this book, desirous to show that even the common and
obvious phaenomena of nature can be very well explained and accounted for
by those principles he had formerly laid down, and published An. 1672, under
the title of Institutio Philosophias, described in Numb. 80 of these tracts ; he
undertakes in this treatise, to pass through the whole body of physiology, and
in so doing, to supply in due places what he has omitted in the said institution.

TOL. VIII J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ' 71

III. The Description and Use of Two Arithmetic Instruments, &c. By S.
Moreland. London, 1673, in 12mo.

The ingenious author of this book, having some years since contrived two
instruments, whereof the one is for Addition and Subtraction, the other for
Multiplication ; gives us here both a description of the parts and structure of
these instruments, and the way and manner of using them.

rV. A Brief Account of some Travels in Hungaria, Servia, Bulgaria, Mace-
donia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Friuli, &c. By Edward
Brown, M. D. of the College of London, R. S. and Physician in Ordinary to
his Majesty, London, 4to.

The learned Traveller gives so good an account of the voyages he made
through those parts named in the title, that thereby he excellently instructs
others what great benefit may be made by travelling, if performed with curiosity
and judgment.

Experiments made at London, with the Liquor mentioned in Numb. 94, (sent out

of France), for Staunching the Blood of jirteries and Veins. N° 95,

p. 6052.
" Mr. Wiseman * laid bare the jugular vein of a dog, and opened it with
a lancet, and immediately applied to it a button-pledget of lint dipped in
the liquor: he opened likewise the carotid artery, and applied a pledge after the
same manner. These pledgets being kept on by the pressure of the thumb about
a quarter of an hour, were then taken off; the vessels bled but not freely :
whereupon the pledgets were changed for fresh ones, and kept on a quarter of
an hour more ; being then first left loose, and afterwards taken off, the vein
and artery were united.

The same day a young woman's breast being cut off, the arteries were stopped
by holding the like pledgets in their mouths, while the dressings were fitted for
the breast. The pledgets being then thrown off, the blood continued staunch,
and the mouths of the arteries remained close.

While this latter operation was performing, a patient, whom Surgeon Wise-
man had newly dressed with a caustic stone in the neck, on some scrophulous
swellings, was brought back to us in a coach, having bled all the way, to the
wetting of almost a whole sheet. The vessel lay so deep that it was hard to
reach it. However Mr. Wiseman dipped two pledgets in the liquor, and thrust

• Wiseman ranks among the earliest and best English Surgeons. He was Surgeon to Charles
II. His Chirurgical Tracts, making a folio volume, were published in \676; and besides gun-shot
wounds and the various surgical diseases, they contain excellent descriptions of scrophula and lues
venerea.

72 PHiLosornicAL transactions. [anno 1673.

them into the two orifices whence the blood came. It was immediately stopped,
and the neck dressed up without any considerable bandage. — Walter Needham.

June 1 ] , 1673. Another experiment was made by Dr. Needham, before the
R. S. A dog's crural artery was cut quite across with an incision knife, the
blood gushing out copiously, a lint dipped in the said liquor was applied to the
wound, and held upon it a little while ; when, by reason of the great glut of
blood, that could not be well wiped away for want of a sponge, the lint was
changed for a fresh one dipped in the liquor, and kept on about half an hour;
and being then left loose, the blood was soon staunched, the dog being then
unbound, licked the wound, and walked away without any ligature, and is still
found alive and well.

June 18, 1673. Another trial was made before the same Society by Denys
himself. In the crural artery of another dog was made an oblique wide cut, and
the liquor in the usual manner being applied to it, the blood was staunched in 7
min. and the dog being then let loose, but yet kept quiet for 23 min. longer, he
then rose and let fall the applied compress, and went away without any bandage.

To these experiments were added some that were made at Whitehall, before
the King, on two calves, by opening the crural artery, and by cutting off a leg;
in which the blood was completely staunched in about a quarter of an hour.

Experiments made at Paris with the same Liquor, as described by M. Denis.

N°95, p. 6054.

This author says, that this essence has none of the usual dangerous inconve-
niences ; it causes no pain at all ; being applied to the wound, it easily pene-
trates through the flesh, to find out and close the mouths of the arteries, with-
out any necessity of cutting away any thing, as you must do, if you will convey
other remedies thither; and the effect of it is so quick, that in about a quarter
of an hour, if it be well and exactly applied, the operation is performed; nor
need you stay several days for the falling off of the eschar to be assured of the
staunchness of the blood.

The experiments he recites are these : —

The crural artery of a dog was pricked with a lancet, presently a*button-pled-
get dipped in the essence was put on the wound, and kej>t on by some lint laid
over the pledget, and held on by the thumb. In less than half a quarter of an
hour the artery was so closed, that not a drop of blood issued on removing the
pledget.

Two days after, the other crural artery of the same dog was laid open, and
having cut it quite through with scissars, a compress of lint dipped in the liquor
was immediately applied to it ; and half a quarter of an hour after, the compress

VOL. Vlir.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 73

being removed, the wound was found very dry, and the artery yielded not a drop
of blood.

Of another dog, the flank was cut with a pen-knife, which penetrated into the
liver. The same knife was run into the groin of another dog, and a vein, nerve,
and artery cut together, to imitate the slashing of a sword, and to see the effect
of this sanative water in that case. All these wounds were speedily cured, with-
out any ill accident to those animals.

To see what this essence would perform in cases of whole limbs quite cut off^,
which sometimes must be done to prevent gangrenes ; a dog was taken and one
of his legs altogether cut off, and a compress of lint, wetted with the essence,
laid upon the cut veins and arteries. At the end of a quarter of an hour the
compress was taken off, and also the bandage, that held it against the stump of
the leg cut ; and the blood was found so staunched, as if no vessel had been
opened in that part.

These experiments having so well succeeded on brutes, and been repeated
over and over with the like success, no scruple was then made to try the liquor
upon men. First, there were opened veins in the arms, as is done in ordinary
phlebotomies, and a lint dipped in the liquor having been held on the wound half
a quarter of an hour, the veins were found as perfectly closed, as is usual in the
common way after 24 hours. Another being bled in the temporal artery, and
the like application made, he went abroad, and took a turn in town without any
compress, or bandage, the artery never opening again.

The same essence has also been very successfully used in fluxes of blood,
giving it at the mouth in ptisane : and surprising eff'ects of it have been seen
in cases of bleeding at the nose : seeing that as soon as a pledget of lint, moist-
ened with this liquor, was put into the nostrils, the blood was stopped.

To show further that extraordinary quality of this essence, Mr. Denis ob-
serves, that it heals wounds without any visible cicatrice, and without any sup-
puration, saying, that by the same property it has of staunching blood, it not
only closes the orifices of vessels opened, but it likewise so constricts the pores
of the fibres of the flesh uncovered, that it suffers no air to enter, nor any hu-
mour to extravasate out of the wound: and by thus defending a wound against
all the alterations that may ensue either from without or from within, it pre«
serves from all suppuration, and keeps the flesh entire ; and the wound closing
without any loss or reproduction of substance, we need not wonder, he says,
that it is done in a short time, and without an apparent cicatrice.

He affirms to have received news from Calais, that an officer of the ship
called le Tonant, having his shoulder broken by a cannon- bullet, was carried
into an hospital, where the axillary artery together with his arm being cut off,

VOL. II. L

74 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

the blood of it was stopped with nothing else but a lint dipped in this liquor;
left fastened on to the artery till next morning. He adds, that from Maestricht
also he is informed, that with the same liquor the blood of a leg had been stop-
ped, the half of which had been carried away by a cannon-ball.

M. Slusius^s Demonstration of his Method* of Drawing Tangents to all Curves,

N° 95, p. 6059.

My method is the same as I have used for many years, and by help of which
I have shown how to determine the contrary flexure of curves, and the limits of
problems in my Miscellanies, and also, if I remember right, formerly in my
letters to you. How I discovered it, and in what way it is demonstrated, you
will easily understand. Indeed I have announced to a few others, like as I did
formerly to you, and in the common characters, that I perform it by certain
lemmas ; which are as follow :

1. The difference of two powers of the same degree, divided by the difference
of their roots, gives the several members of the next inferior power of their

binomial; as ^ — = yy -\- yoc + xx. This instance is chosen among many

others, as is easily shown. — 2. There are as many terms in any power of a bino-
mial, as there are units in the exponent of the next higher power ; viz. three in
the square, four in the cube, &c. As is commonly known. — 3. If the same
quantity be divided by two others, of a given ratio, the quotients will be reci-
procally in the same given ratio — which is evident.

By these lemmas my method is demonstrated ; which you will soon accom-
plish, as I have disposed them in such order as leads one, as it were by the hand,
to the demonstration.

On the Veins in Plants. By Dr. Wallis. N° 95, p. 6060.

As to the veins of plants, which Mr. Lister observes (N° 90) are not ramified,
but rather bundles of them divaricated ; in this they resemble the nerves, which
(as Dr. Willis de Cerebro observes) go together in that which seems the
common trunk, like a bunch of threads, which afterward separate and are vari-
ously divaricated ; and these nerves, being cut, shrink up, as the veins of plants,
as much or more than the veins or arteries of animals.

Dr. Wallis observes also, that there are two sorts of nerves ; one arising
from the Cerebrum, subservient to voluntary motions, and of which we are
conscious or take notice, and which properly belong to the functions of the

* Given in No. 90. p. 38.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 75

sensitive soul, at least to the functions of sense ; the other from the Cerebrum,
subservient to the involuntary motions, and of which we are not conscious or
sensible, and which belong rather to the functions of the vegetative soul,
(nutrition, &c.) or at least the insensible loco-motive faculty: and to these latter
seem reducible those acts of sense, which Mr. Lister speaks of in plants. See
Dr. Willis de Cerebro, c. ig, p. 241, edit, in 4to, and c. 15, p. 187.

On the IfTiiteness of the Chyle within the lacteal Feins ; with divers particulars
observed in tlie Guts, especially several Sorts of JVorms found in them. By
Mr. Lister. N' 95, p. 6060.

I have long wished to discover the actual passage of the chyle into the
lacteal veins ; of which yet I never doubted, as I find some do at this day.
The difficulty lies in the certain and unalterable character of the chyle's white-
ness, especially when received into those veins. And yet it is as certain, that
in a diabetes the urine retains all the qualities of the liquor drunk. Also in that
famous instance of those that eat the fruit called the prickle-pear, their urine
has aifrighted the eater with the colour of blood, that is, with the unaltered
colour of the juice of the fruit. In these instances at least we cannot doubt but
the chyle, even in the lacteal veins, was qualified according to the food and
drink.

To effect then something to this purpose, we have formerly, and that very
often, repeated the experiment of injecting highly tinged liquors into the guts
of a live animal. Thus, having laced the skin of the abdomen of a dog loosely
for a hand's breadth, and then opening it underneath the stitches, we took out
either the duodenum, or any other part of the tenuia intestina. The gut taken
out, we opened with a very small orifice, and having ready the tinged liquor
lukewarm, we injected it upward and downward: carefully stitching up the gut,
and then drawing the lace, we unloosed two of the dogs feet, laying hjm on
his side for what time we thought convenient. The tinged liquors we used,
were good Barbadoes indigo, in fair water, and filtrated; also lumps of indigo
thrust down his throat ; good broth, as they call it, of a blue vat ; indigo in
milk, saffron in milk. Again, we tried in some dogs fed before hand, and in-
jected the liquors in the very height of the chyle's distribution ; into others yet
fasting, and that for a longer or shorter time.

The success was so constant, that we cannot say we ever found the least dis-
colouring of the chyle on the other side the guts, that is, within the lacteal
veins, but ever white and uniform. Whence we judge it not very feasible to
tinge the venal chyle in a well and sound animal. And he that would demon-

La

76 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1673.

strate the matter of fact to the eye, must probably do it by giving him some
such thing in the food, as shall cause a diabetes, or some distemper equivalent
to it.

Of the guts we shall ob'serve as follows : — 1 . Of the glandulae miliares of the
small guts, which may also in some animals be well called fragiformes, from the
figure of the one half of a strawberry, and which yet I take to be excretive
glandules, because conglomerate. — 2. The use of the intestinum caecum, sub-
servient to that of the colon and rectum ; manifest in such animals, where na-
ture intends a certain and determinate figure to the excrements. — 3. Of some
sorts of vermin, we found in the guts. And first of the lumbrici lati or tape-
worms.* Of these, I say, we found in the guts of one dog, perhaps more than
a hundred in all. The duodenum was exceedingly stuffed out and extended with
them. Which also well agrees with another observation I made in a mouse,
where I found the duodenum to be far larger than the stomach itself, by reason
of the great numbers of these worms for kind, which w^ere contained in it : for
kind, I say ; for these tape-worms were of a quite different shape from those of
the dog, or any that I have ever yet seen. To proceed, we found them also in
the dog's jejunum and Ileon ; but not any one lower than the valvula coli, nor
any higher than the duodenum or within the pylorus. Below the duodenum
they lay at certain distances one from another, though sometimes by pairs or
more of them twisted together. Near them was constantly to be observed an
excrement of their own, distinct, for colour (more grey) and consistence, from
the chyle, (the observation being made in a dog plentifully fed for other pur-
poses ;) just as we find in worm-eaten tracks of wood, where the cossi leave be-
hind them the wood which has passed through their bodies : these worms lay
mostly with the small ends upward, as feeding upon and expecting the chyle in
its descent. These lumbrici lati were none of them above one foot long, and
most of them of an equal length and size. The one end was as broad as my
little finger-nail, and pointed like a lancet ; the other end, coming small
gradually for the third part of the whole length of the animal, was knotted, or
ended in a small button like a pin-head. They were every where and in all parts
of them alike milk white, of a flat and thin substance, like fine tape, divided into
infinite rings and incisures ; each incisure having sharp angles, on both sides,
looking to the broader end standing out beyond each other : from which also I
take the small end to be the head ; else the sharp corners of the annuli would

* The worms here mentioned belong to the Linnaean genus taenia, which comprehends a great
number of species. These have been severally described and figured in the writings of Pallas,
Block, Goetze and Werner ; and much new light has been thrown upon their structure and economy
by a gentleman well skilled in comparative anatomy and physiology, Mr. Carlisle. See Linn. Trans.
vol.11.

TOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 'J^

necessarily hinder the ascent of the animal ; whereas, if the contrary be true,
they serve to keep it up. Each ring has also on the one side only, and that
alternately, one small protuberance, much like the middle feet of the body of
some caterpillars. — I was not so happy as to discover any motion in any part of
them, in water or out of it, nor did they seem, if pricked or otherwise hurt,
much (if at all) to contract themselves or shorten the annuli, so that they then
appeared to me as things without motion or sense.

There is another sort of lumbrici lati to be met with very frequently also in
dogs, called cucurbitini, from the likeness each annulus or link has to a cucum-
ber seed. I have sometimes found them about half a foot long, but more often
broken into shorter pieces. The former by us described is undoubtedly a com-
plete and entire animal ; but there is great reason of suspicion, that this is a
chain of many animals linked together. These animals for kind have been
observed to have been voided by men, and found enclosed in a gut or mem-
brane of a prodigious length : and a person of great integrity and worth,
Mr. T. I. affirmed to me, that he once assisted at the opening of a dog, in
which one of the kidneys was observed to be quite wasted, and become a
perfect bladder, and in that bladder they found something like an animal of a
monstrous shape, which being dissected, was nothing else but a skin full of
these lumbrici cucurbitini.

And because worms of this sort are sometimes said to be found out of the
guts, their most proper place, we shall conclude with a very recent obser\^ation
of the last month in this city. A surgeon brought me about 20 worms, which
he had just then taken out of an ulcerated ancle of a girl of about eight years
old. I had the curiosity to go myself and see it. I found the leg sound, all
but the ancle, which was vastly swelled, and the girl otherwise hearty and well
coloured. She had been in great misery for some months ; had been sent up
to London, where she was touched and dressed for the evil. Sometime after
her return, her pain continuing, a young puppy was opened and applied to the
sores. The surgeon, who took off the puppy, found it full of worms, at least
60 in number, taken from the body of the puppy and from the sore ancle to-
gether, into which, he said, they crawled down as worms do into the ground.
The same puppy was again applied, and it was then that I made the visit, and
saw only one worm got into the puppy, but a \-ery live and stirring one. Many
were afterwards killed by injections. These worms were of the very species of
the lumbrici teretes, which children familiarly void from the guts. They were
between 3 and 4 inches long ; all about the matter, of an equal largeness, as of
one brood ; something thicker than a duck's qnill ; very sharp at both ends \
stiff and exactly round ; without incisures, visible at least, and yet could move

78 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

and twist themselves readily enough. All the difference was in the colour,
these being much whiter than any I have seen from the guts. Vid. Barthol. in
Hist. 60, Cent. 5, where near 20 worms, as long as my finger, were found in
a lady's arm, probably of this species too.

The Undertakings of Mr. Henry Bond, senior, a famous Teacher of the Art of
Navigation in London, concerning the Variation of the Magnetical Compass
and the Inclination of the Inclinatory Needle ; as the Result and Conclicsion of.
38 Years Magnetical Study. N^ 95, p. 6065.

Mr. Bond can show the cause of the variation of the magnetical needle, or
compass, by the motion of two magnetical poles ; how these poles are found ;
and what their distance is from the poles of the earth ; what their annual mo-
tion is, and from whence it proceeds.— By calculation he finds all the variations
that have been observed at or near London, for above 90 years past ; and so by
consequence it may be found at London to the end of the world. — He has cal-
culated a table to every 5 minutes of the inclination of the inclinatory needle ;
so that by the needle's inclination, and that table, and the latitude of the place,
he can find the longitude of any place in the world. — By that table also he finds
Mr. Robert Norman's inclination, which he found An. 1576; and can show
what will be the greatest and least inclination of the inclinatory needle, in any
latitude in the world. — He has 4 examples of finding the longitude by the help
of the inclinatory needle ; one at Balsora in the East Indies, in the year 1657.
Another at Cape Charles, on the coast of Virginia before that time. The third
at the Cape of Good Hope. The fourth at the Straits of Magellan.

On a pleasant Way of catching Carps. By Mr. John Templer.

N° 95, p. 6066.

A gentleman invited me to walk with him to his fish-ponds, and to see a boy
throw out carps with his hands, at any time in the heat of the day. I saw four
very large ones, that the boy took. His way was this : he waded into the pond,
and then returning to the sides, he would grope them out in the sedge or
weeds, and, tickling them with his fingers under the belly, quickly remove his
fingers to their gills, and throw them out upon the land.*

* This trifling paper is littie worth preserving. The " pleasant way of catching carps" relates
merely to what is now well known j viz, that carps, and, it might be added, many other fish, in
warm weather, are sometimes so indolent as to suffer themselves to be gently handled, and may
consequently be easily seized and taken out of tlie water.

VOL. Vlir.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 79

An easy Way of raising Fruit-trees to any Number desired. By Mr. Lewis of
Tottenham High-cross. N* 95, p. 6067.

Take a piece of the root of any apple or pear-tree, &c. about 6 inches long,
and tongue-graft, a graft of an apple or pear into the root. The way of tongue-
grafting is, to cut the root sloping about 1 inch, and the graft sloping in like
manner 1 inch; cutting both very smooth. Then cleave the root and the graft
likewise about 1 inch, and enter them into one another, that the sap of the
graft may join to the sap of the root as much as you can. Lap the jointed place
about with a little hemp or flax-hurds ; set the root so grafted into the ground
about 10 or 12 inches deep, so as the joint may be covered at least 4 inches
under the earth, that it may not be bared at any time, but kept moist by the
earth.

An Account of some Books, N° 95, p. 6068.

I. Christian! Hugenii Zulichemii Horologium Oscillatorium. Par. 1673, in
folio.

This eminent mathematician divides this treatise into five parts; of which,
the first contains his description of the pendulum watch. — The 2d treats of the
descent of heavy bodies, and their motion in a cycloid, that is, in a line which
a nail, fastened in the circumference of a running wheel, by its continued cir-
cum rotation designs in the air. — The 3d of the evolution and dimension of
curve lines. — The 4th of the centre of vibration. — ^The 5th of the construction
of another watch, in which the pendulum moves circularly ; with some theorems
of centrifical force.

A simple pendulum being no certain and equal measure of time, since the
larger excursions are observed to be slower than the smaller, the other has, by
the aid of geometry, discovered a way of suspending the pendulum, by finding
out a certain curve line fit to give it the desired equality, which having applied
to watches, their motion has by this means been rendered so constant and cer-
tain, that by frequent experiments they are now known to be exceedingly use-
ful, both in astronomy and navigation. This being the cycloid abovementioned,
our author gives a very accurate demonstration of it, with some new demon-
strations on the natural descent of heavy bodies.

But then that this cycloid might be adapted to the use of pendulums, he
thought himself obliged to enter upon a new consideration of curve lines, viz.
of those, which by their evolution generate other curves. Whence resulted the
comparison of the length of curve lines with straight ones. — Besides, for the
clearer explication of the nature of the compounded pendulum, he subjoins a

80 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673«

Speculation on the centres of agitation, or oscillation, in which occur many con-
siderable theorems, relating to linear, plain and solid figures.

To all which he promises the mechanical structure of the watch, and the ap-
plication of the pendulum to it ; enriching that part with his table of the equa-
tion of days, as also with a relation of the several successes of such watches
employed in considerable sea- voyages; of which he says the best of all has been
that in the expedition of the late Duke of Beaufort into Candia ; who, having
taken with him in his own ship two of those watches, and appointed a good
astronomer to take care of them ; the longitudes of the places, which they either
touched at in that voyage, or which in passing by they could see, were by
means of the said watches exactly measured, so as that the very same differences
of longitudes were found by the most accurate maps assigned to those places.

But since those trials, our author says he has improved his watches, by using
a pendulum of a triangular figure, and by another way of suspending them ; of
which he gives an ample description. We may also notice his universal and
perpetual measure, which he establishes by exactly taking the measure of the
distance from the point of suspension to the centre of oscillation of a simple
pendulum vibrating a second of time ; which being found to be such a length,
as being divided into three equal parts, will make such a measure, as he calls an
horary foot ; which having such or such a proportion to all other feet, may be
used to settle a constant and certain measure every where, and to recover it in
all ages, as time will be always and in all places the same ; and consequently such
a length being taken as exactly equals a second of time, a just universal measure
is obtained.

II. Modern Fortification, &c. ; by Sir Jonas Moore,* master surveyor of
his Majesty's ordnance. Lon. 1673, in 8vo.

* Sir Jonas Moore, F. R. S. was a respectable matliematiclan, besides a good engineer, and be-
came surveyor general of the ordnance, or master surveyor as it was then officially called. He was
born at Whitbee, near the confines of Lancashire and Cheshire, about the year l6l5, and enjoyed
a liberal education, but bent his studies chiefly to the matliematics and astronomy, to which he was
always strongly attached. In the expeditions of King Charles the 1st in the northern parts of Eng-
land, Mr. Moore was introduced to him, as a person learned in those sciences j which laid the
foundation of his fortune. In l647 he was appointed mathematical preceptor to the king's second
son, James the Duke of York. During Cromwell's government it seems he followed tlie profession
of a public teacher of mathematics, when his loyalty was a great prejudice to his fortune. After the
return of Charles the lid, he found great favour both with the king and duke of York, who often
consulted him, and were advised by him on many occasions. And it must be owned that he used to
employ his interest with the court to the advancement of learning and the encouragement of merit.
Thus, he procured the royal observatory at Greenwich to be built in l675, recommending Mr.
Flamsteed as the king's astronomer there. Also, being a governor of Christ's Hospital, by his in-
terest the king founded the mathematical school tliere : and for the use of tliis school Sir Jonas com-

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 81

The worthy and intelligent author of this book comprehends in a small
volume whatever has been designed and practised by the latest and most ex-
perienced engineers of this age, Italian, French, Dutch and English ; and the
manner of defending and besieging forts and other places ; with the use of a
joint-ruler or sector, for the speedy description of any fortification. The whole
performed by very easy rules.

III. The Elements of that Mathematical Science called Algebra, by John
Kersey. Lon. An. l673, in fol.

A remarkably full and complete body of the algebraic art ; perhaps the most
so of any book of its time.

Description of a Bee-house, tised in Scotland. N*^ 96, p. 6076.

In fig. 4, plate 2, A represents the bee-house, lying on one side, with the
frame BBBBBBBB placed in it; CCCC, the screw pins that hold the frame
fast ; D, the square hole at top open ; E, the windows ; F, the door for the bees
to go in and out ; G, the place by which the knife enters to cut the honey-
combs asunder upon occasion; HH, the inward crease at the bottom.

In fig. 5, A, is the bee-house set upright ; B, the square hole through which
the bees work downward; C, the shutter that covers the hole upon occasion;
D, the door for the bees. E, a sliding shutter that covers the door in winter ;
F, the window ; GG, the handles for lifting all; HH, the crease for fastening
one bee-house over another.

In fig. 6, A is the frame for the bees to fasten their work upon ; BB the
screw nails.

The bee- house is made of wainscot, about 16 inches in height, and 23 in
breadth, between opposite sides. It has 8 sides, each almost 9 inches in breadth.
It is close covered at top with boards, having a square hole in the middle, 5
inches long, and about 4 inches broad ; with a shutter that slides to and fro in a
groove, about half an inch longer than the hole. It has 2 windows opposite to
one another, and may have more, of any figure, with panes of glass and shut-
ters. The door for the bees is divided into three or four holes, about half an

piled his New System of Mathematics, in 2 volumes 4to. In l673 he was sent by the government
in some public capacity to Tangier ; and after his return he was advanced to be surveyor of the
ordnance, and had the honour of knightliood. In l67-i he became a very useful member of the
Royal Society. Sir Jonas died in 168I, the year in which was published his Course of Mathematic,
abovementioned. Besides that work, we find him author of several others : as, 1. Arithmetic,
vulgar and algebraical, in 8vo. 2d, A Mathematical Compendium ; or Useful Practices in Arith-
metic, Geometry, Astronomy, Geography, Navigation, &c. in 12mo, the 4th edition in 1705,
3d, Modem Fortification, &c. in 8vo, 1(573. 4to, General Treatise of Artillery, in 8vo, 1^83.

VOL. II. M

82 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1073.

inch square; with a shutter that slides in a groove to cover them in winter. It
has two iron handles with joints, to be placed about the middle, if there be no
windows on the sides where they are ; or above them if there be. At top it
has a crease all round it, about half an inch in depth on the outside, and 1 ^ inch
high ; and another on the inside at the bottom, which serves to fix them when
set upon one another. It has also a hole about two inches square, on one side
at bottom, by which the knife is put in to cut the bees work, that passes
through the hole from one bee-house into another, as they work downwards
into the empty house; which has a sliding shutter to cover it. Within the bee-
house there is a square frame, made of 4 posts joined at top, at bottom, and in
the middle, with 4 sticks for the bees to fasten their work upon ; which though
they will serve, yet it may be securer to have two more added in each of their
places crossing the frame, either from the middle of the opposite side-sticks, or
from angles where the posts are placed.

This manner of bee-house is useful for preventing the swarming of bees.
For when the bee-house wants room for the young bees, they swarm, and fly
away to find a house for themselves, which is prevented by placing an empty
one made thus, under the full one, having the door at top open, that they may
work downwards into it. And when both are full, the bees will all be in the
lowest house; and then, to get the honey and wax without destroying or trou-
bling the bees, with a thin long knife, broad at the end, and sharp on both
sides, the bees work is to be cut as low as can be, and the uppermost bee- house
to be lifted off by the handles, and being reversed, the screws are to be taken
out, and then the frame with all the bees work upon it will easily slip out ; after
which, the empty bee-house may be set under the other, if need be, and the
uppermost having the square hole above covered with the shutter, some other
cover may be set over it to keep the bees from the injuries of the weather. And
if this separation be made in the spring or summer, the bees will like their new
house the better that it has been used before.

Account of Further Experiments concerning the Wonderful Ejects of the Blood-
Staunching Liquor. N° 96, p. 6078.

The King having in his presence caused some considerable experiments to be
made with the new blood-stopping liquor on brutes, and there remaining yet
some persons here doubting, whether it would as well succeed on men; his
Majesty gave order to his chirurgeons to go and see in the hospitals, whether
there were not some wounded persons whose blood had need to be stopped..
Hereupon there were found two very fit patients in the hospital of St. Thomas.
The first was a woman labouring under an inveterate scurvy and the King's evil.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 83

whose leg was to be cut off, because of a malignant ulcer, not suffering her to
sleep day or night. The other was a seaman, whose leg was also to be cut off,
because of a wound accompanied with a fracture made by a cannon-ball in the
last sea fight.

The first experiment was made July 3, the King having sent some of his phy-
sicians and chirurgeons to the hospital, to be present at the operation, and faith-
fully to report to his Majesty what should pass there. The leg of the woman
being cut off, immediately the arteries were dressed with some linen pledgets
dipped in the astringent liquor, with a compress upon it, and a bandage keeping
all close against the arteries. The success was, that the blood was staunched
without any other dressing; and instead of complaining, as those are wont
to do who have a limb cut off, and the mouths of the arteries burnt with a hot
iron, or a caustic to stop the blood, this patient looked very cheerful, and was
free from pain, and slept two hours after, and also the night following ; and from
that time has found herself still better and better, without an) return of bleeding,
or any ill accident.

The 4th of July the leg of the seaman was cut off, and after the part was
dressed as above, with linen dipped in the essence, the blood was stopped in
less than half a quarter of an hour. There was made a bandage, that pressed
the linen against the cut arteries; and without any other thing the patient found
himself so eased of the pains he felt before, that he slept two or three hours
after, and all the night following.

Next morning the dressings of the woman, as well as of the man, w^re taken
off in the presence of the same persons, and all the physicians and chirurgeons
there present acknowledged, that no wounds could look more fair and ruddy ;
there appearing no eschar at all, nor any more blood than if there had never
been any veins or arteries opened in that part. These two patients have found
themselves very well ever since the operation ; and forasmuch as no ill accident
has befallen them since, they have served to convince the most incredulous of
the goodness of this remedy.

The King easily concluding, from these and the former experiments, how
useful this medicine would be in his armies and fleets, and understanding that
those who before opposed it did now highly praise it, gave order that M. Denis
should be desired to communicate the secret of it, which being done, his Ma-
jesty commanded a quantity of it to be made in his own laboratory, of which
trials were made on three calves in Whitehall, the 12th of July ; a leg of each
of them having been cut off, as high as was possible, and the blood of them
stopped with this new liquor, to the admiration of all the spectators. For this
water having been prepared with more exactness than ever, the effect of it was

84 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I673.

SO quick and effectual, that the blood was stopped in four minutes of time, the
calves by their motion making the pledgets to fall off, that had been put on the
parts cut, and not a drop of blood appearing.

The King hereupon caused the quantities that had been thus prepared, which
were very considerable, to be immediately dispatched away to his Majesty's fleet ;
and it is not doubted, but that upon occasion all that shall happen to be wound-
ed will receive great relief and benefit by it.

Description of the Prosopographic Parallelogram, for delineating Orthographi-
cally, by Parallel Visual Rays, the Attitudes and Gestures of the Human Body,
observing exactly the Proportion and Symmetry of the Parts. By Mr. John
Sinclair. N° 96, p. 6084. Translated from the Latin.

Let ABCD (fig. 1, pi. 2,) be a prosopographic or delineating parallelogram;
HF a central style or pin ; LC a drawing pencil ; R A an index, or oblong ruler,
fitted perpendicularly to the plane of the parallelogram, by means of a brass
screw nail ; on this ruler are fixed two sights, PR, S V; in the middle of PR
is a hole O, and in the middle of S V a thread stretched perpendicular to the
ruler, on the middle of which is a small globule, by which, and the hole O, a
ray from the object reaches the eye, which in delineating must not be fixed,
but free and loose.

It is to be observed, 1. That a ray passing through the hole O and the glo-
bule, will be always perpendicular to the plane of the parallelogram, or its dia-
meter, which is a right line passing through the pencil LC, and the fixed centre
HF, and the said globule; in which line the globule always is, whatever be the
motion of the parallelogram. 2. That Q YXT is the sensible delineatory plane
on which the point L of the pencil moves, describing the image by the motion
of the ruler AR, into which plane the central style is fixed; and that £<?j3y is
the rational or mathematical plane, being a continuation of the former. 3. That
all rays will be parallel to each other coming from the object, by the globule and
the hole, to the eye, placed according to the direction of the ruler, in as many
points of the diaphanous medium, as there are points in the visible surface of
the object to be described, which indeed are infinite; as is thus proved: lines
parallel to the same line, though not in the same plane, are parallel to each
other, by Eucl. xi, 10 ; but all the rays extending from the object, through the
sights to the eye, are parallel to the same right line, viz. to the ray passing from
the object through the globule and the hole O ; consequently they are parallel
to each other. Again, if two right lines be perpendicular to the same plane,
those lines will also be parallel, Eucl. xi, 6 ; but the primary ray passing from
the object through the sights to the eye, and all the other secondary, are per

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL .TRANSACTIONS. 85

pendicular to the rational or mathematical plane ii^y, by the hypothesis; there-
fore all the rays, passing from the object through the sights to the eye, are
parallel to the same right line, viz. to the ray passing through the globule and
hole O. Q. E. D.

So?ne Considerations on Mr. Newton's Doctrine of Colours, and on the Effects of the
different Refractions of the Rays in Telescopical Glasses. In a Letter from
Paris. N° 96, p. 6O86.

I have seen how Mr. Newton endeavours to maintain his new theory of
colours. It seems that the most important objection, which is made against him
by way of quaere is, that whether there be more than two sorts of colours.
For my part, I believe that an hypothesis, that should explain mechanically,
and by the nature of motion, the colours yellow and blue, would be sufficient
for all the rest, since those others, being only more deeply charged, (as appears
by the prisms of Mr. Hook,) produce the dark or deep red and blue, and that,
of these four all the other colours may be compounded. Neither do I see why
Mr. Newton does not content himself with the two colours yellow and blue ;
for it will be much more easy to find an hypothesis by motion, that may explain
these two differences, than for so many diversities as there are of other colours.
And till he has found this hypothesis, he has not taught us in what consists the
nature and difference of colours, but only this accident, (which is certainly YQ.Ty
considerable,) of their different refrangibility.

As for the composition of white made by all the colours together, it may
possibly be, that yellow and blue might also be sufficient for that : which is
worth while to try ; and it may be done by the experiment which Mr. Newton
proposes by receiving against a wall of a darkened room the colours of the prism,
and to cast their reflected light on white paper. Here you must hinder the
colours of the extremities, viz. the red and purple, from striking against the
wall, and leave only the intermediate colours, yellow, green, and blue, to see
whether the light of these alone would not make the paper appear white, as
well as when they all give light. I even doubt whether the lightest place of the
yellow colour may not alone produce that effect, and I mean to try it at the
first conveniency ; for this thought never came into my mind but just now.
Mean time you may see, that if these experiments succeed, it can no more be
said that all the colours are necessary to compound white, and that it is very
probable that all the rest are nothing but degrees of yellow and blue, more or
less charged.

Lastly, touching the effect of the different refractions of the rays in telesco-
pical glasses ; it is certain that experience agrees not with what Mr. Newton

86 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO I673.

holds. For to consider only a picture, which is made by an object-glass of 12
feet in a dark room, we see, it is too distinct, and too well defined, to be pro-
duced by rays that should stray the 50th part* of the aperture. So that, as I
believe I have told you heretofore, the difference of the refrangibility does not,
it may be, always follow the same proportion in the great and small inclinations
of the rays on the surface of the glass.

Mr. Neivtons Answer to the foregohig Letter, further explaining his Theory of
Light and Colours, and particularly that of TVIiiteness ; with his continued Hopes
of perfecting Telescopes by Reflections, rather than Refractions. N° 96, p.6087.

Concerning the business of colours; in my saying that when Mons. N. has
shown how white may be produced out of two uncompounded colours,
I will tell him, why he can conclude nothing from that; my meaning was,
that such a white, were there any such, would have different properties
from the white which I had respect to, when I described my theory, that is, from
the white of the sun's immediate light, of the ordinary objects of our senses,
and of all white phaenomena that have hitherto fallen under my observation.
And those different properties would evince it to be of a different constitution;
insomuch that such a production of white would be so far from contradicting,
that it would rather illustrate and confirm my theory : because by the difference
of that from other whites it would appear, that other whites are not compounded
of only two- colours like that. And therefore if Mons. N. would prove any
thing, it is requisite that he do not only produce out of two primitive colours a
white, which to the naked eye shall appear like other whites, but also shall agree
with them in all other properties.

But to let you understand wherein such a white would differ from other whites,
and why from thence it would follow that other whites are otherwise compound-
ed, I shall lay down this position : that a compounded colour can be resolved
into no more simple colours than those of which it is compounded.

This seems to be self evident, and I have also tried it several ways, and par-
ticularly by this which follows. Let a, represent an oblong piece of white paper,
about i or i of an inch broad, (fig. 3, pi. 2,) and illuminated in a dark room with
a mixture of two colours cast upon it from two prisms, suppose a deep blue and
scarlet, which must severally be as uncompounded as they can conveniently be
made. Then at a convenient distance, suppose of 6 or 8 yards, view it through
a. clear triangular glass or crystal prism, held parallel to the paper, and you shall

* Compare this with what Mr. Newton says in Numb. 80, page 681, vol. I.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 87

see the two colours parted from one another in the fashion of two images of the
paper, as they are represented at € and y, where suppose p the scarlet, and y the
blue, without green or any other colour between them.

Now from the aforesaid position I deduce these two conclusions. 1 . That if
there were found out a way to compound white of two simple colours only, that
white would be again resolvable into no more than two. 2. That if other whites,
as that of the sun's light, &c. be resolvable into more than two simple colours,
as I find by experiment that they are, then they must be compounded of more
than two.

To make this plainer, suppose that A represents a white body, illuminated by
a direct beam of the sun, transmitted through a small hole into a dark room,
and a. such another body illuminated by a mixture of two simple colours, which
if possible may make it also appear of a white colour, exactly like A. Then at a
convenient distance view these two whites through a prism, and A will be
changed into a series of all colours, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, with their
intermediate degrees succeeding in order from B to C. But «, according to the
aforesaid experiment, will only yield those two colours of which it was com-
pounded, and those not conterminate like the colours at BC, but separate from
one another as at i3 and y, by means of the different refrangibility of the rays to
which they belong. And thus by comparing these two whites, they would ap-
pear to be of a different constitution, and A to consist of more colours than «.
So that what Mons. N. contends for, would rather advance my theory by the
access of a new kind of white than conclude against it. But I see no hopes of
compounding such a white.

As for Mons. N.'s expression, that I maintain my doctrine with some concern,
I confess it was a little ungrateful to me to meet with objections which had been
answered before, without having the least reason given me why those answers
were insufficient. The answers which I speak of, are in the Transactions from
p. 20 to p. 29 of this vol. And particularly in p. 22 ; to show that there are
other simple colours besides blue and yellow, I instance in a simple or homo-
geneal green, such as cannot be made by mixing blue and yellow, or any other
colours. And there also I show why, supposing that all colours might be pro-
duced out of two, yet it would not follow that those two are the only original
colours. The reasons I desire you would compare with what has been now said
of white. And so the necessity of all colours to produce white might have
appeared by the experiment p. 23, where I say, that if any colour at the lens be
intercepted, the whiteness which is compounded of them all will be changed
into (the result of) the other colours.

However, since there seems to have happened some misunderstanding be-

88 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

tween us, I shall endeavour to explain myself a little further in these things
according to the following method.

Definitions.

1 . I call that light homogeneal, similar or uniform, whose rays are equally
refrangible. 2. And that heterogeneal, whose rays are unequally refrangible.

Note. There are but three affections of light in which I have observed its
rays to differ, viz. refrangibility, reflexibility, and colour; and those rays which
agree in refrangibility agree also in the other two, and therefore may well be
defined homogeneal, especially since men usually call those things homogeneal,
which are so in all qualities that come under their knowledge, though in other
qualities that their knowledge extends not to, there may possibly be some hete-
rogeneity.

3. Those colours I call simple, or homogeneal, which are exhibited by homo-
geneal light. 4. And those compound or heterogeneal, which are exhibited by
heterogeneal light.

5. Different colours I call not only the more eminent species, red, yellow,
green, blue, purple, but all other the minutest gradations; much after the same
manner that, not only the more eminent degrees in music, but all the least gra-
dations, are esteemed different sounds.

Propositions.

1 . The sun's light consists of rays differing by indefinite degrees of refrangi-
bility. 2. Rays which differ in refrangibility, when parted from one another,
do proportionally differ in the colours which they exhibit. These two proposi-
tions are matter of fact. 3. There are as many simple or homogeneal colours
as degrees of refrangibility. For to ever}^ degree of refrangibility belongs a
different colour, by prop. 2. And that colour is simple by def. 1 and 3. —
4. Whiteness, in all respects like that of the sun's immediate light, and of all
the usual objects of our senses, cannot be compounded of two simple colours.
For such a composition must be made by rays that have only two degrees of
refrangibility, by def. 1 and 3 ; and therefore it cannot be like that of the sun's
light, by prop. 1 ; Nor, for the same reason, like that of ordinary white
objects.

5. Whiteness, in all respects like that of the sun's immediate light, cannot
be compounded of simple colours without an indefinite variety of them. For
to such a composition there are requisite rays indued with all the indefinite de-
grees of refrangibility, by prop. 1. And those infer as many simple colours, by
def. 1 and 3, and prop. 2 and 3.

To make these a little plainer, I have added also the propositions that follow.

6. The rays of light do not act on one another in passing through the same

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQ

medium. This appears by several passages in the Transactions p. 23, 24, 25,
26, and 27, and is capable of farther proof.

7. The rays of light suffer not any change of their qualities from refraction.

8. Nor afterwards from the adjacent quiet medium. These two propositions
are manifest de facto in homogeneal light, whose colour and refrangibility is not
at all changeable, either by refraction or by the contcrmination of a quiet me-
dium. And as for heterogeneal light, it is but an aggregate of several sorts of
homogeneal light, no one sort of which suffers any more alteration than if it
were alone, because the rays act not on one another by prop. 6. And there-
fore the aggregate can suffer none. These two propositions also might be fur-
ther proved apart by experiments, too long to be here described.

9. There can no homogeneal colours be educed out of light by refraction,
which were not commixed in it before: because, by prop. 7 and 8, refraction
changes not the qualities of the rays, but only separates those which have divers
qualities, by means of their different refrangibility.

10. The sun's light is an aggregate of an indefinite variety of homogeneal
colours; by prop. 1, 3, and 9. And hence it is that I call homogeneal colours
also primitive, or original. And thus much concerning colours.

Mons. N. has thought fit to insinuate, that the aberration of rays, by their
different refrangibility, is not so considerable a disadvantage in glasses as I seem-
ed to be willing to make men believe, when I propounded concave mirrors as
the only hopes of perfecting telescopes. But if he please to take his pen, and
compute the errors of a glass and speculum that collect rays at equal distances,
he will find how much he is mistaken, and that I have not been extravagant, as
he imagines, in preferring reflexions. And as for what he says of the difficulty
of the praxis, I know it is very difficult, and by those ways which he attempted
it I believe it impracticable. But there is a way insinuated in the Transactions,
by which it is not improbable but that as much may be done in large
telescopes, as I have thereby done in short ones, but yet not without more than
ordinary diligence and curiosity.

Strange Effect of Thunder and Lightning, on Wheat and Rye in the Granaries of
Dantzick. By M. Christ. Kirhhy. N° 96, p. 6092.
You doubtless know how much this city is famed for its numerous and conve-
nient granaries, it being the repository of all sorts of grain the fruitful kingdom
of Poland affords. In those granaries are laid up chiefly wheat and rye, in par-
cels of 20 to 30 and 60 lasts in one chamber, according to its size, and the dry-
ness of the corn ; which they turn over 3, 4, 5, 6 times a week, as need requires,
to keep it svveet and fit for shipping. Now it happened, that about the latter

VOL. II, N

QO PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I673.

end of March and April last, we had much and violent thunder and lightning,
which had this unhappy effect on all the parcels of wheat and rye of the last year's
growth, that, though over night they were dry, sweet, and fit for shipping, the
next morning they had lost all these good qualities, and were become clammy
and stinking, and consequently unfit to be shipped away for the present : so that
the owners were forced to cause It to be turned over two or three times a day;
and yet it required six weeks, if not longer, before it was recovered.

This Is a thing which often happens to corn that has not lain in the granary a
whole .year, or not sweat thoroughly in the straw before It be thrashed out. An
accident little noted, yet In my judgment worth the enquiring Into. For, though
the alterations caused by thunder in liquors, be taken notice of, and probable
reasons given for them ; yet I judge this somewhat more abstruse, and therefore
more worth while to be considered.

u^n Uncommon Case in Physic, communicated hy the Same from Dantzick.

N° 96, p. 6093.

In this narrative it is stated, that a minister, 50 years of age, was troubled
with an indisposition, attended with sickness and vomiting ; of which he was
liable to relapses after the exertion of preaching. What he brought up In one
of these relapses resembled tallow, 4 pieces of which weighed i an ounce.

Johannis Flams tedii Derhiensis Angli, ad Clarissimum Cassinum Epistola. N° 96,

p. 6094.

This letter of Mr. Flamsteed, to M. Cassini, contains an account of some'
observations made by the former, on the planet Jupiter and his satellites, also
on the planet Mars, stating the motions, periods, and distances of the satellites,
from Jupiter ; though in a less accurate degree than that which they are known
at present. Mr. F. deduces from his observations, that the parallax of Mars
is 25" ; and that consequently the solar parallax is about 10"; and therefore the
sun's distance from the earth is 21000 of the earth's semi-diameter; this being
too little, or the parallax too great, by about the 5th part, according to later and
more exact observations.

An Account of a Book. N° 96, p. 6101.

Viz. Several Tracts written by the Honourable Robert Boyle ; of the strange
Subtilty, Efficacy, and determinate Nature of Effluviums; of New Experiments
to make the parts of Fire and Flame, Stable and Ponderable ; with some Addi-
tional Experiments about Arresting and Weighing of Igneous corpuscles ; as

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. Ql

also a Discovery of the Pcrviousness of Glass to Ponderable parts of Flame,
with some reflexions on it by way of Corollary.

This long title sufficiently shows the nature and contents of these Tracts,
which are in the hands of the public.

On the Number of Colours, and the Necessity of mixing them all for the production

of White ; also why a Picture cast by Glasses into a darkened Room appears so

distinct i notwithstanding its irregular Refractions. In a Letter of April 3, 1673,

from Mr. Newton. Being an Answer to the Remarks in the last Number. N° 97,

p. 61O8.

It seems to me, that N. takes an improper way of examining the nature of
colours, whilst he proceeds upon compounding those that are already com-
pounded, as he does in the former part of his letter. Perhaps he would sooner
satisfy himself by resolving light into colours, as far as may be done by art, and
then by examining the properties of those colours apart, and afterwards by try-
ing the effects of re-conjoining two or more, or all of those^ and lastly, by sepa-
rating them again, to examine what changes that re-conjunction had wrought
in them. This I confess will prove a tedious and diffidilt task, to do it as it
ought to be done ; but I could not be satisfied till I had gone through it. How-
ever, I only propound it, and leave every man tahis own method.

As to the contents of his letter, I conceive my former answer to the quaere
about the number of colours is sufficient, which was to this effect; that all
colours cannot practically be derived out of the yellow and blue, and conse-
quently that those hypotheses are groundless which imply they may. If you
ask, what colours cannot be derived out of yellow and blue ? I answer, none of
all those which I defined to be original ; and if he can show by experiment,
how they may, I will acknowledge myself in an error. Nor is it easier to frame
an hypothesis by assuming only two original colours, rather than an indefinite
variety; unless it be easier to suppose, that there are but two figures, sizes and
degrees of velocity, or force, of the asthereal corpuscles or pulses, rather than
indefinite variety ; which certainly would be a harsh supposition. No man won-
ders at the indefinite variety of waves of the sea, or of sands on the shore ; but
w^ere they all but two sizes, it would be a very puzzling phenomenon. And I
should think it as unaccountable, if the several parts or corpuscles, of which a
shining body consists, which must be supposed of various figures, sizes and
motions, should impress but two sorts of motion on the adjacent aethereal
medium, or any other way beget but two sorts of rays. But to examine how
colours may be explained hypothetically, is besides my purpose. I never in-
tended to show wherein consists the nature and difference of colours, but only

N 2

92 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

to show, that de facto they are original and immutable quahties of the rays
which exhibit them ; and to leave it to others to explicate by mechanical hypo-
theses the nature and difference of those quahties : which I take to be no diffi-
cult matter. But I would not be understood, as if their difference consisted in
the different refrangibility of those rays; for that different refrangibility
conduces to their production no otherwise, than by separating the rays whose
qualities they are. Whence it is, that the same rays exhibit the same colours
when separated by any other means ; as by their different refiexibility, a quality
not yet discoursed of.

In the next particular, where N. would show, that it is not necessary to mix
air colours for the production of white ; the mixture of yellow, green, and blue,
without red and violet, which he propounds for that end, will not produce
white, but green; and the brightest part of the yellow will afford no other colour
but yellow, if the experiment be made in a room well darkened, as it ought;
because the coloured light is much weakened by the reflexion, and so apt to be
diluted by the mixing of any other scattering light. But yet there is an expe-
riment or two mentioned in my letter in the Transactions, Numb. 88, by which
I have produced white out of two colours alone, and that variously, as out of
orange and a full blue, and out of red and pale blue, and out of yellow and
violet, as also out of other pairs of intermediate colours. The most convenient
experiment for performing this, was that of casting the colours of one prism
upon those of another, after a due manner. But what N. can deduce from
hence I see not. For the two colours were compounded of all others, and so
the resulting white, to speak properly, was compounded of them all, and only
decompounded of those two. For instance, the orange was compounded of
red, orange, yellow, and some green ; and the blue of violet, full blue, light
blue, and some green, with all their intermediate degrees; and consequently the
orange and blue together made an aggregate of all colours to constitute the
white. Thus if one mix red, orange, and yellow powders, to make an orange;
and green, blue, and violet colours, to make a blue; and lastly, the two mix-
tures, to make a grey; that grey, though decompounded of no more than
two mixtures, is yet compounded of all the six powders, as truly as if the pow-
ders had been all mixed at once.

This is so plain, that I conceive there can be no further scruple ; especially to
those who know how to examine whether a colour be simple or compounded,
and of what colours it is compounded; which having explained in another place,
I need not now repeat. If therefore N. would conclude any thing, he must
show, how white maybe produced out of two uncompounded colours; which
when he has done, I will further tell him why he can conclude nothing from

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. QS

that. But I believe there cannot be found an experiment of that kind ; be-
cause as I remember I once tried, by gradual succession, the mixture of all
pairs of uncompounded colours ; and, though some of them were paler, and
nearer to white than others, yet none could be truly called white. But it being
some years since this trial was made, I remember not well the circumstances,
and therefore recommend it to others to be tried again.

In the last place, had I thought the distinctness of the picture, which, for in-
stance, a 12 foot object-glass casts into a darkened room, to be so contrary to
me as N. is pleased to affirm, I should have waved my theory in that point, be-
fore I propounded it. For, that I had thought on that difficulty, you may
easily guess by an expression, somewhere in my first letter (N° SO) to this pur-
pose ; that I wondered how telescopes could be brought to so great perfection
by refractions, which were so irregular. But to take away the difficulty, I must
acquaint you first, that though I put the greatest lateral error of the rays from
one another, to be about -^ of the glass's diameter; yet their greater error from
the points on which they ought to fall, will be but -ris- of that diameter : and
then that the rays, whose error is so great, are but very few in comparison to
those which are refracted more justly; for, the rays which fall upon the middle
parts of the glass, are refracted with sufficient exactness, as also are those that
fall near the perimeter, and have a mean degree of refrangibility ; so that there
remain only the rays which fall near the perimeter, and are most or least re-
frangible, to cause any sensible confusion in the picture. And these are yet so
much further weakened by the greater space, through which they are scattered,
that the light which falls on the due point, is infinitely more dense than that
which falls on any other point round about it. Which though it may seem a
paradox, yet is certainly demonstrable. Yea, although the light, which passes
through the middle parts of the glass, were wholly intercepted, yet would the
remaining light convene infinitely more dense at the due points, than at other
places. And by this excess of density, the light which falls in or invisibly near
the just point, may, I conceive, strike the sensorium so vigorously, that the
impress of the weak light, which errs round about it, shall, in comparison, not
be strong enough to be animadverted, or to cause any more sensible confusion
in the picture than is found by experience.

This I conceive is enough to show why the picture appears so distinct, not-
withstanding the irregular refraction. But if this satisfy not, N. may try, if he
please, how distinct the picture will appear, when all the lens is covered except-
ing a little hole next its edge on one side only : and if in this case he please to
measure the breadth of the colours, thus made at the edge of the sun's picture,
he will perhaps find it to approach nearer to my proportion than he expects.

g4 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1073.

An Aiisiver to the former Letter, ivritten June 10, l673, hy the same Parisian
Philosopher, who wrote the Letter already extant in N° 96, p. 85, N° 97,
p. 6112.

Touching the sokitions, given by M. Newton to the scruples by me proposed,
about his theory of colours, there were matter to answer them, and to form
new difficulties; but seeing that he maintains liis opinion with so much concern,
I list not to dispute. But what means it, I pray, that he says; though I should
show him, that the white could be produced of only two uncompounded colours,
yet I could conclude nothing from that. And yet he has affirmed in N° 80, of
the Transactions, that to compose the white, all primitive colours are necessary.

As to the manner in which he reconciles the effect of convex glasses for so
well assembling the rays, with what he establishes concerning the different re-
frangibility, I am satisfied with it ; but then he is also to acknowledge, that this
aberration of the rays is not so disadvantageous to optic glasses, as he seems to
have been willing to make us believe, when he proposed concave speculums as
the only hopes of perfecting telescopes. His invention certainly was very good;
but, as far as I could perceive by experience, the defect of the matter renders it
as impossible to execute, as the difficulty of the form obstructs the use of the
hyperbola of M. Descartes : so that, in my opinion, we must stick to our
spheric glasses, which we are already so much obliged to, and that are yet
capable of greater perfection, as well by increasing the length of telescopes, as
by correcting the nature of glass itself.

To this letter is to be referred that, which is already extant in N° 96, p. 86,
as being an answer thereto.

On Ambergris. By Mr. Boyle. N° 97, p. 6ll3.

On Ambergris.^ Extracted from a Dutch Journal, belonging to the Dutch East
India Company. And communicated hy Mr. Boyle. N° 97, p. 61 15.

Ambergris is not the scum or excrement of the whale, &c. but issues out of
the root of a tree ; which tree, how far soever it stands on the land, always
shoots forth its roots towards the sea, seeking the warmth of it, thereby to de-
liver the fattest gum that comes out of it : which tree otherwise by its copious
fatness might be burnt and destroyed. Wherever that fat gum is shot into the

♦ Ambergris or ambergrease, is now pretty generally allowed to be no other than the hardened
faeces of the sperma-ceti whale, or physeter macrocephalus of Linnaeus. Of this particular an ample
account occurs in volumes 33, 38, and 90 of the Transactions, and will of course be abridged in a
fiiture volume of the present work.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. Q5

sea, it is SO tough, that it is not easily broken from the root, unless its own
weight and the working of the warm sea do it ; and so it floats on the sea. —
There was found by a soldier 4^ of a pound ; and by the chief, two pieces
weighing 5 pounds. If you plant the trees where the stream sets to the shore,
then the stream will cast it up to great advantage. March 1, 1 672, in Batavia
Journal Advice from

On the further success of the Blood-staunching Liquor. By a Surgeon of his

Majesty s Fleet. N°97, p. 6ll5.

Sir — I doubt not but you have heard, with what admirable success the royal
styptic liquor was used in the last engagement against the Dutch, by the
chirurgeons of the Earl of Ossory, Sir Edward Spragg, and Sir John Berry, and
others. A very good physician in Yarmouth, several credible persons also in
London and other places, some of whom have taken it inwardly themselves,
give the like commendation of it for stopping bleeding upon eruption or aper-
tion of a vessel in the lungs, or other internal parts, being administered accord-
ing to the printed direction.

The Figures of some of Mr. LeewenhoelC s Microscopical Observations, formerly
published in N° 94, p. 66, with their Explication. N° 97, p. Q\\6.

In fig. 7, pi. 2, AB is the great sting, or rather the sheath or case of the
hee,^ out of which were taken the two stings which he formerly noticed ; E is
the cavity of the sheath, in which the two stings, by and by to be described,
lie ; like a quill pulled out of a fowl's wing, and of that cut off a third part in
length, and by its sides bent a little inwards towards E. D is the thickness of
the case beneath: and about DA the two stings show themselves, each in a
place by itself.

In fig. 8, HI is part of the sting taken out of the sheath AB, which appears
a little sideways ; whence it is, that the crooks or barbs KK do not show so
large nor sharp, as indeed they are. L is the back of the sting without barbs ;
which side or back is almost as broad as one of the sides of the sting, when the
barbs appear.

In fig. 9, MN is the whole sting, taken also out of the sheath AB in fig. 7,
and with its back, which is without barbs (as has been shown in fig. 8, by L,)
turned to the eye. Here the barbs show themselves, though turned from the
eye, through the sting, as appears by R. The upper part of the sting NQ is
closed round about, and hollow within ; and the lower part QS is open. SM
is a part of the broken sinew, which is very near as long as the whole sting ;

96 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

and when it can be taken whole out of the body, it contracts itself into the
shape of a half moon, and appears of the colour of a tortoise-shell, as also does
the sting itself. OP is the body fastened to the sting, and placed in the thicker
part of the case DC A (in %. 7), viz. S about A, and T towards D. — In fig. 10,
abc are both the stings, as they lie together before, close against the sheath ;
yet is one of them a little higher than the other : and forasmuch as at a there is
yet seen a little of the sheath, here both the stings seem to be one, furnished
on both sides with barbs. — In fig. 1 1, edgf h are both the stings, in part out
of their. sheath ; yet the sting edh stands a little higher out of the case than the
sting gf h. Thus they are found to lie in their sheath, when they are at rest. —
In fig. 12, two stings, standing also a little out of the sheath. As to the mo-
tion of these stings, I conceive it to be thus made : first the bee draws her
sheath with its stings out of the body, and endeavours to thrust it as far as she
can into the body she would sting, together with one of the stings, which at
that time she draws out of the case : which sting, when she is drawing back
again, but it not being able, by reason of the barbs to return, she pulls the
sheath and the other sting deeper into the body. Now it is that she uses her
other sting, which she then thrusts also into the body as deep as she can, and
then endeavours to pull that back also ; by which pulling back she thrusts her
sheath and first sting yet deeper into the body : and this she continues so long
till she gets both the stings and the sheath as far as to the thick part of the
sheath, into the body ; which done, the stings need no more motion out of
the sheath, when the body of the sting (in fig. 9,) OTP in the thickness of
the sheath CD A (in fig. 7,) can move from C to D.

And so much for the stings of the bee. Let us now see how our observer
explains his figures representing the several members he has taken notice of
about the head of a bee ; which were also briefly mentioned in the aforesaid
js^® 94. — See then fig. 13, where LDABC is one of the two small limbs, which
the bee has on the forepart of her head, and which he calls arms, wherewith he
judges she makes her honey-combs, each furnished with three peculiar joints,
as at D, A, B. — In fig. 14, EF is one of the two small Hmbs, which the bee
has likewise on the forepart of her head, by him called scrapers, by the help of
which, he conceives, she scrapes the wax from flowers. — In fig. 15, GH is the
small limb, which is also placed before on her head, and is by him called the
wiper, wherewith he conjectures she wipes off the honey from the flowers. —
Fig. 16, IK represents the scraper of a wild bee, which he exhibits here with
the rest, because it is of a different make from the scraper of a tame bee^ above
in fig. 14.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. Q'/

A Prohlem of Alhazen solved: by M. Hay gens and M. Slusius. Translated from

the Latin, N° 97, p. 6119.

Mr. Huygens writes : By this opportunity I send you a solution of Alhazcn's
problem, which I have lately discovered, and which our colleges approve of very
much. The problem is this : Having given a concave or a convex speculum,
as also the place of the eye and the visual point ; to find the point of reflexion.

Let the point A be the centre of the spherical speculum (fig. 1, pi. 3), B the
eye, and C the visible point, and let a plane drawn through A, B, C, cut the
sphere in the circle Dd, in which are the points of reflexion to be found.
Through the three points A, B, C, describe the circumference of a circle, whose
centre is Z, and meeting EI produced perp. to BC, in R; and let NA be a
third proportional to RA and OA; then NM, parallel to BC, will be one of
the asymptotes. Again, let EA, 4 OA, lA be proportionals, and taking lY
equal to IN, draw YM parallel to AZ; and it will be the other asymptote.
Lastly, taking IX, IS, which shall each be in power equal to half the square
of AO, with the square of AI ; then will the points X and S be in the hyper-
bola, or the opposite sections Dd, to be described to those asymptotes, the in-
tersections of which with the circumference DO, will show the points of re-
flexion sought. This construction takes place in every case in which the pro-
blem is solid, except in that in which not an hyperbola but a parabola is to be
described ; viz. when the circumference described through the points A, B, C,
touches the right line AE.

The editor having sent a copy of this to M. Slusius the 24th of September
1670, he sent the following answer Nov. 22, the same year. — When I reduced
the construction of the celebrated Huygens to calculation, I found that he had
followed the same analysis as myself. But since two solutions are derived from
it, both of them by the hyperbola about the asymptotes, he made choice of the
one, and I of the other, as being the easier. Now it is evident, that nothing
more is required in this problem, if we reduce it to mere geometrical terms,
than in a given circle, whose centre is A and radius AP (fig. 2, 3, 4), to find
some point P such, that drawing the lines PE, PB, to the given points EB,
unequally distant from the centre A, the line AP produced, may bisect the
angle EPB. Now this admits of various cases. For, either the perpendicular
from A on the right line EB, that is AO, falls between E and B, or beyond B.
If beyond it, either the rectangle EOB is equal to the square of AO, or is
greater or less. Of the case of equality we shall speak below. Now the other
three cases we shall comprehend nearly under the same construction. Let a

voii. II. O

98 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

circle pass through the three points A^E, B; and AO be produced to its cir-
cumference at D. Then if the point O fall between E and B, the right line
A O is to be produced towards O ; but if beyond B, and the rectangle EOBbe
greater than the square of AO, it must be produced towards A ; but if the
rectangle be less than that square, the circle will cut the right line AO in the
very point D. Then drawing AX parallel to EB, cutting the given circle in
N, make the rectangle DAO to the square of AN, as -l-AX is to AH; which
must be taken towards X, if O fall between E and B, or if the rectangle EOB
be less than the square of OA ; but on the contrary side, if it be greater. Now
put OQ equal to AH, in the direction EB in the first or second case, but to-
wards E in the third. Then let X A, NA, HK be proportionals, and all taken
in every case towards X ; and let AO be cut in V, so as that K A may be to
A V as AD to AX; join KV, and produce it to meet the right line QM,
parallel to OA, indefinitely produced, in the point L. Then in every caseKL
and QL will be the asymptotes of the hyperbola, which drawn through the
point O will satisfy the question. Yet with this difference, that in the first or
second case, the hyperbola passing through O will answer for the convex specu-
lum, and the opposite section for the concave one ; but, on the contrary, in
the third case, the hyperbola through O will answer the concave speculum, and
its opposite the convex. And thus it will be when the point V falls between A
and O ; for if it should fall beyond O, one hyperbola alone, drawn between the
same lines QL and KL, will serve for both the convex and concave specula.
But if V should fall in the point O, then it would be a plane problem, and the
right lines LQ and LK would resolve it. Whence it appears that this problem
admits of infinite cases, which may be solved by a plane locus: and hence those
are excusable who have thought the problem might be solved universally by the
same locus, because thus sometimes the calculus has been successful. For
there can be given no position of the three points A, E, B, (still reserving the
case of equality of the rectangle EOB and the square of OA for future con-
sideration), which admits not of some circle to be described from the centre A,
at the circumference of which the problem may be solved by a plane locus. As
to the radius of this circle, if worth while, it might be thus found : In the first
and second case of the above construction, make as AX^ -j- double the rect-
angle OAD to 2AD^ so AO^ to AN^ then AN will be the radius sought.
But in the third case, there is to be made as AX^ — the double rectangle OAD
CO !2AD% so is AO' to AN^

There now remains to be constructed the other case, viz. when the rectangle
EOB is equal to AO^, or in which the circle described through the points
A. B, E, touches the right line AO. And here M. Huygens has rightly ob-

TOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 99

served that in this case a parabola is to be described; which, however, is not to
be so understood, as if it could not be solved by an hyperbola, since it may ad-
mit both of an hyperbola and an ellipsis, even an infinite number, proceeding
by our method ; only this case admits of the parabola, which the other cases do
not. And the same limitation is to be made when he says, that his construction
takes place in every case when the problem is a solid one; for his meaning is,
that by a small alteration an hyperbola may always be found that will answer the
question : which will be evident on comparing the cases as above constructed
with his construction. But to return to the case of equality : and that I may
not seem to have made a rash assertion, you have not one, but two parabolas,
and opposite hyperbolas besides, that answer the problem. As before, let EB
be the given points, (fig. 5) and a circle from the centre A, also another
through the three points A, E, B, whose tangent is AO, and centre D. Draw-
ing the diameter NADX, constitute the three proportionals XA, NA, ZA,
the half of which is AL. Make these other three proportionals 20A, NA,
I A, the half of which is.KA, and complete the rectangle LAOV; also produce
LV to S, till VS be a third proportional to AI, OV; then with the axis SL,
the latus rectum A I, and vertex S, describe a parabola ; so will this cut the
circle in the points P, P, as required. The same thing may be effected by
another parabola, if, having completed the rectangle DAHC, and produced
KC to T, so that CT be a third proportional to AZ, DC, it be described
about the axis TK, with the vertex T, and latus rectum ZA; for this will meet
the circle in the same points P, P (fig. 6). But the construction by the opposite
sections is still easier ; for making, as before, the three proportionals XA, NA,
ZA, demit the perpendicular ZI a third proportional to 2AO and AN. Hence
ZI will be greater than ZA, since 2AO is less than XA ; then at the point I
let the right lines IQ, IM be inclined to IZ in half a right angle, and inde-
finitely produced both ways ; lastly, about these as asymptotes through A de-
scribe an hyperbola, and the other opposite one ; then the latter will answer the
problem for a convex speculum, and the former for a concave one. For since,
as was shown, ZI is always greater than ZA, the line IM will never pass
through A. Therefore a case will not here occur, in which from this con-
struction, as in the foregoing, the problem may be solved by the asymptotes
themselves : and yet this also sometimes admits of a plane locus, viz. when it
happens that the right line XO drawn to the centre D touches the circle NPP;.
for then the point of contact itself solves the question. And so much con-
cerning a problem, which has exercised the genius of many persons, the solu-
tion of which I completed some years since.

O 2

100 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

After some other communications with these two learned men, Huygens and
Slusius, in which the former acquiesces in the solution of the latter, but yet
thinks his own the more natural, Slusius sends another solution of the problem,
as follows :

Let there be given a circle whose centre is A (fig. 7), and let the given points
be D and d. Suppose the thing done; and let DE be the incident, and Ed
the reflected ray; and from the point of reflexion E let fall on DA the perpen-
dicular EI, and from d on the same line the perpendicular dN, also let the
tangent EC and ray dE produced meet the same line in C and B. Now put
DA = z, AI = a, NA = n, EI = e, dN = Z?, BA = y, AE = q, CA = cc.
Then, since the angle DEC = CEB, and CEA a right angle by the hypo-
thesis, the three lines DA, CA, B A are harmonical proportionals, as is easily
shown. Therefore DA will be to B A, as DC to CB ; or, in algebraic terms,

z'.y '.'.z — oc '. X — y \ hence Izy — xy ■=. zx, or ^ = x. And since the
rectangle CAI, or xa is equal to AE^ or qq, it will be a: = — and conse-
Guentlv — ^ = ^, or , ^'^^ = y. Again, it is, as f/N to EI, so is NB to
IB ; or as h \ e:'.y '— n '. y — a-, therefore ye — ne r=z. hy — ha, and y =

ha we ^ ,1 2'70' ha — ne „ , ^ , ,

_- — - — . Consequently - — -- — = —, , or Izbaa — Iznae — qqba +

b — e ^ 2za — qq b — e -' ^ '

qqjie = bzqq — "Z-qqe, which is the equation to an hyperbola about its asymp-
totes, the construction of which, with the given circle, answers the problem.
For since, from the nature of the circle, it is qq := aa -{• ee, if instead of
ibzaahe substituted its value 2bzqq — 2b zee, there will result another similar
equation to the hyperbola about its asymptotes, viz. bzqq — 2b zee — 2znae —
qqba-\- qqne z= — zqqe. And by this method, as also by that which is explain-
ed in my book on analysis, there will arise infinite equations to hyperbolas and
ellipses, which with the given circle will solve the problem ; only the efFections
will become so much more intricate, that it may not be worth while to try
them : but they may be constructed by that method used for the ellipsis at page
62 of the same book.

The whole of the calculation, as you see, is referred to the line DA ; but you
will perceive that it might be as easily adapted to the line dA, which is likewise
given, viz. by drawing the dotted lines in the scheme. But there is no occasion
for the trouble of a new calculation. P'or if to the line d A, and its parts, there
be adapted the same symbols, viz. making d A = z, Dn = Z?, n A = tz, Ai =
a, i E = e, &c. ; there will then arise the same equation as before ; and you will
obtain infinite other hyperbolas and ellipses, which with the given circle will
satisfy the problem. It would be useless to prosecute the several cases, since

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. lOl

their equations may be discerned by only the variations of the signs + ^nd — .
One case only is excepted, viz. when d AB is a right angle; the equation for
which is obtained, after expunging out of the former equation all the terms in
which n is found, since it vanishes, viz. the equation 2zbaa — qqba = bzqq
— zqqe; or, substituting {or2zbaa its value zbqq — qqba = 2zbee —
zqqe.

But it is to be observed, that though by referring the analysis to the line DA,
two hyperbolas offer themselves in the equation ; and as many more different
from the former, when the calculation is referred to dA; yet in both cases the
very same parabola arises : the reason of which you will easily perceive on a little
consideration.

Let us now. Sir, apply the foregoing analysis to all the problems which are
usually proposed about the reflexion of spherical specula. Let there be then, as
before, a circle, whose centre is A, (fig. 8), Da given point, from which DE is
an incident ray, and EQ its reflected one. Joining DA, to which draw the tan-
gent EC, and the perpendicular EI, also the line QEB produced; then denot-
ing the parts as before, viz. DA = z, C A = x, AE = q, BA = y, AI = a,
IE = e; because the three DA, CA, BA are harmonical proportionals, and
the three C A, AE, A I are geometricals, we have always the equation z/ =.

Zqq

• , on whatever point of the circle the ray DE falls. So that, if the

Zza — qq' ...

point E be required, on which if the ray DE fall, it may be reflected parallel to
the diameter LAV, a perpendicular to DA; the reflected ray QE produced
will pass through I, as is plain ; and I and B will coincide. Hence a ■=. y z=z

'^n ^^ „„ 9^« _

-, or a a —

4 qq, and the problem is solved by plain loci.

220 — qq 2z

If the point be required from which a ray may be reflected parallel to any
other line, as AK, drawn from the centre A; from the point L draw the tangent
KL = c?; then it is plain that the triangles AKL, EIB will be similar, since all
the sides of the one are parallel to all those of the other. Therefore AL is to
LK as EI to IB, or q -.d '.-. e:a — y, and ^"~ = ?/ = r—^ — ; hence zq^

■' ^^ q '^ 2 za — qq ^

= 2 qzaa — 2 zdae — q^a -{- qqde ; or, putting qq — ee for aa, zq^ = 2 zq^

— 2 zqee — 2 zdae — q^a -\- qqde. And each equation belongs to an hyper-
bola about the asymptotes, which with the given circle solves the problem.

Let it be now proposed to make the reflected ray pass through the given
point N, as in Alhazen's problem, or that being produced towards the point of
reflexion E, it may pass through the given point N. From N draw NO = n
perpendicular to AL, and put AO = Z?. Then it is plain that A O will be to the
difference between ON and AB_, as EI to IB; that is, b :n — y :: e : a — y.

J04 PttlLOSOl'HiCAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1073.

or b '.y — n:: e:y — a. Therefore —, = w = —^ — . Hence 2zbaa-^

J J t) — e «/ za — qq

2 znae — qqha -f qqne = zhqq — "^qq^, which is the very equation to Alha*

zen's problem above formed : or, in the second case, -7— = 7/ = — ^^ — ,

^ ' b + e -^ 2za — qq^

or Izhaa + Iznae — qqha — qqne = zhqq + zqqe.

And these are the problems commonly proposed concerning the point of
reflexion in which the distance of the given point D is supposed to be finite.
But the analysis will be easier if it be supposed infinite. For bisecting CA in
G, it appears from the property of the three harmonical proportionals, DA,
CA, BA, that the three DG, CG, BG will be geometrical proportionals, sup-
posing the point D at any distance whatever. Therefore if it be supposed
infinite, BG will become nothing, and the point B coincide with G. Conse-
quently AB will be always equal to BC : therefore CA = 2?/, and the rectangle
CAI equal to AE^ will give in symbols 2ay = qq, or 3/ = —^i and since the
distance of the point D is supposed infinite, E D will be parallel to AC. There-
fore, if there be required the reflected ray parallel to AL, because in that case
a and ?/ coincide, it will be a = ?/ = ~, or aaz=.±.qq. If it be required to be pa-

1-allel to AK, it will again he, 2ls q-. d r. e \ a — y, and -^^-^^^^-^ = z/= ^, or iqaa

— 2rfae = ^^ : if it be required to pass through N, it will be as above, ^ -"^. =

y sz ^ , and 2 haa + 2nae =: hqq + qqe, which are also equations to the
hyperbolas about the asymptotes, unless the point N be supposed to be in AL;
for, as in that case n becomes nothing, by taking out of the equation the terms
in which n is contained, the remainder will give the equation to the parabola, as
we before observed.

You will not expect, learned sir, that as a I have hitherto given examples for
the concave specula, so I should now proceed to the convex. For you know
that the analysis is the same in both, and their equations only differ in the varia-
tions of the signs + and — . You know that the parabola or ellipse which solv^es
the one, will satisfy the other also; and if the hyperbola solve the problem in
the convex, the opposite hyperbola will do the same in the concave. Omitting
these then, I shall only add, that by the same analysis in concave speculums, we
may find their foci, and the spaces occupied by the rays in the axis, for any given
distance of the lucid point : but with great facility when the rays are supposed
parallel ; which yet I have seen demonstrated by some in a very tedious way.
For in the concave speculum EE (fig. 9), whose centre is A, if the extreme
ray be supposed as reflected to the axis AR at B, drawing the tangent EC, it

VOt. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 103

will be CB = BA. Bisect the semi-axis AR in Q; then Q will be the focus,
and QB will be the space required. Now QB is half CR, because of the equals
AQ, QR, and AB, BC; that is, half the excess of the secant of the arc ER
above the radius. Therefore if the arc ER be, for example 9 degrees, then
AC will be 101246, and B = vo%Vo6 of AR.

Account of Four Boohs ^ N° 97, p. 6 127.

I. Tracts, consisting of Observations about the Saltness of the Sea: An
Account of a Statical Hygroscope and its Uses ; with an Appendix on the Force
of the Air's Moisture; and a Fragment on the Natural and Preternatural State
of Bodies: By R. Boyle, Esq. to which is prefixed a Sceptical Dialogue on the
Positive or Privative Nature of Cold. By a Member of the R. S. London,
1673, in 8vo.

This very long and particular title, and the circumstance that the book is in
the possession of all philosophers, make it unnecessary to give any farther
account of it.

II. Principia et Problemata aliquot Geometrica, ante desperata, nunc breviter
explicata et demonstrata; Auth. T. H. Malmesburiensi. Lond. An. 1673,
in 4to.

The famous author of this tract, (Mr. Hobbes), haying entertained the
reader with some remarks concerning the subject, the principles and the method
of mathematics, and with his doctrine of ratio, as also his sense of algebraical
operations, with two chapters of square figures, square numbers, and angles j
undertakes to confirm his former doctrine ; 1. Of the ratio of the circumference
to the radius of a circle; 2. Of mean proportionals ; 3. Of the ratio of a square
to the quadrant of a circle inscribed in it; 4. Of solids and their superficies:
to which last he subjoins another method of demonstrating solids and their
superficies by their efficient causes.. Which done, he concludes the book with
a discourse touching demonstrations; the principal and most frequent cause of
fallacies in the mathematics; and the notion of the word Infinite. Complaining
very much, that geometry has received its greatest prejudice from those, that
discourse of a line without latitude; that take the side of a square for the root of
a number ; that understand not the true nature of ratio ; and that speak un-
favourably of Infinity! The whole being chiefly directed against Dr. Wallis.

III. An Idea of a Phytological History propounded; with a Continuation of
the Anatomy of Vegetables, particularly prosecuted upon Roots ; and an Ac-
count of the Vegetation of Roots grounded chiefly thereupon. By Nehemiah
Grew, M. D. and F. R. S. London, 1673, in 8vo.

This learned and inquisitive author, after the publication of his first endea-

104 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I673.

vours about the anatomy of plants, (of which an account was given in Num. 78
of these Tracts,) being resolved upon a further prosecution of them, has given
us the series of his thoughts and observations following thereupon in this his
second book, distributed in three parts.

The first contains the author's idea or design of a phytological history. In
order to this, five requisites are proposed. The first is a particular and compa-
rative Gurvey of what relates to the more external consideration about vegeta-
bles ; as of their figures, proportions, seasons, places, motions. The second a
like survey of the organical parts by anatomy, and how that is 'to be prosecuted,
both without and with a microscope ; from thence we may come to know, what
the communities of vegetables are as belonging to all; vi'hat their distinctions to
such a kind ; their properties to such a species ; and their particularities to such
particular ones. The third, another similar survey of the contents of vegeta-
bles ; of their several kinds, as spirits, airs and vapors, clear saps, milks, oils,
gums, sugars, salts, &c. examined in all manner of ways. The fourth means a
like survey of the principles as well as the contents of the organical parts.
Whence will be attainable a further knowledge of the modes of vegetation, and
of the sensible natures of vegetables, as also of their more recluse faculties and
powers. The fifth, a like survey of those bodies, either from which these prin-
ciples are derived, or wherewith they have any communion ; which are earth,
and all solid receptacles; water, and all liquid receptacles; air and sun. All
which our author concludes with putting the question once more, viz. In what
manner these principles are so adapted as to become capable of being assembled
together in such a number, connection, proportion and union, as to make a vege-
table body ?

The second part is a continuation of the anatomy of vegetables, particularly
prosecuted upon roots ; as l.The skin, its external accidents and original, its
compounding parts, the one parenchymous, consisting of bubbles, the other
ligneous, consisting of tubulary vessels. 2. The bark; its original and external
accidents, its compounding parts, likewise parenchymous, and ligneous; which
latter consists of succiferous vessels, conjoined in threads, but no where inoscu-
lated, nor ramified, but distinct as the fibres of a nerve, which vessels are of
various kinds, denominated from their contents, as lymphaeducts, lacteals, &c.
3. That portion of the root within the bark, of the like composition with the
former, and its ligneous part, compounded of succiferous and air-vessels. Where
the structure of the bark, and more visibly of this portion of the root, is com-
pared with that of a muscle; and the air-vessels with nerves : concerning which
latter vessels he observes, with the excellent Malpighi, the spiral position of
their parts ; adding to that observation, that that spiral zone, as Signor Malpighi

rOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 105

calls it, is not one absolutely entire piece, but consists of two or more round and
perfect fibres standing collaterally together. 4. The pith, not common to all
roots ; its origin, parenchymous nature, and texture, like to a rete mirabile, of an
infinite number of small fibres admirably complicated together ; its contents
being sometimes a limpid liquor, sometimes a vaporous air.

The third part contains an account of the vegetation of roots, grounded
chiefly on the foregoing anatomy. Where our author considers nature as one
universal monarchy, visible in vegetables, if we take notice, that the soil is pre-
pared by rain, sun, wind, air, and their several successions; that the parenchyma
of the bnrk of the root, standing in the soil thus prepared, receives the watery
parts of the soil, that the skin strains the water, and renders it more pure ; that
the sap thus strained, yet being compounded of heterogeneous parts, and they
received into the said parenchyma, they will now ferment ; whereby being yet
further prepared, they will more easily insinuate themselves into all the bubbles
of that parenchyma, which being in no place openly and visibly pervious, but
every where composed of an infinite number of small bubbles, the sap therefore
is not only fermented therein, and fitted for separation, but as it passes through
it, is every part of it strained a hundred times over from bubble to bubble ; in a
word, how the whole progress of vegetation is performed. Besides the explica-
tion of a great variety of phaenomena, occurring in the contemplation of vege-
tables ; as why the organical parts are void of taste, smell and colour : whence
the succiferous vessels are tough, and the parenchymous parts friable ? how the
said succiferous vessels grow in length, cylindrical and hollow; the lactiferous
how and why wider? how the air-vessels are formed? how the parenchymous
parts become fibrous, and the fibres disposed into bubbles, &c.

All which is concluded with excellent observations of the odours of vegeta-
bles, of their colours and tastes ; and the whole piece illustrated with 7 tables
of cuts, representing the figures of several roots, as the author had viewed them,
both with the naked eye and the microscope; together with an explication of
these figures.

IV. Thomae Bartholin! Acta Medica et Philosophica Ann. 1671 et 1672,
Hafn. 1673, in 4to.

We do not think it necessar)' to enumerate the contents of this miscellaneous
collection ; which, however, like all the other works of this author, contains
many things interesting to physicians and philosophers.

VOL. II.

106 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS [aNNO iG/S.

An Account of the Current of the Tides about the Orcades. Communicated hy
Sir Robert Moray, * Knt. deceased, lately one of the Vice Presidents of the
Royal Society, of which he had been President formerly . N° 98, p. 6139.

In Fairy Sound, between the isles of Fairy and ^tha in Orkney, the sea runs
north-east, for the space of only three hours in flowing, and nine hours south-
west in ebbing. This is the course of the tide only in the middle of the Sound,
which is but one mile broad.

The next isle to Fairy, towards the south-west is Westra, about five miles in
length, and three or four in breadth. On the south-east side of this island,
within a mile of the shore lies another little isle, not half a mile in circumference.
South and south-west from these two islands, is Westra- Frith, eight miles in
breadth, running between them, and the isle called Pansa. Through this Frith
the English ships ordinarily pass in their course to Iceland.

While the sea runs from west to east in flowing, through this Westra-Frith,
there are no greater surges, than in any other place of the sea; and in a calm
day it is as smooth as any lake, though there is constantly a great current in
the flux and reflux of the sea. Yet at the south-east end of the fore-mentioned
little island, the sea no sooner begins to run westward in ebbing, but there
begins a surge to -appear, which continually increases until the ebb be half spent,
after which it decreases until it be low water, when it ends. East and west from

* This respectable member of the Royal Sociely, was descended of an ancient and noble family
in the Highlands of Scotland, and was educated partly in the University of St. Andrews, and partly in
France, where he had afterwards a military employment in the service of Lewis the ISth, being also
n high favour with Cardinal Richelieu. He came over to England for recruits, when King Charles I.
was along with the Scotch army at Newcastle. Here he grew in great esteem with the King, for
whose escape, about Dec. l646, he laid a design in the following manner: Mr. Wm. Moray, after-
wards Earl of Dysart, had provided a vessel at Tinmouth, whither our author. Sir Robert, was to con-
duct the King in a disguise. The plot proceeded so far, that his Majesty put himself in the disguise,
and went down the back stairs with Sir Robert : but fearing he should not pass all the guards without
discovery, and deeming it very indecent to be taken in such a condition, his heart failed him, and he
went back.

On the restorarion of King Charles II. Sir Robert was made one of his Privy Council, and was one
of the first and most active members of the R. S. attending assiduously to their concerns, and com-
municating several papers. In the first charters of the Society he was named of the Council j and he
had, before that, been several times the President, when it was the custom to elect one monthly. Sir
Robert died suddenly at Whitehall, July 4, l673, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, near the
monument of Sir Wm. Davenant. Sir Robert was well skilled in Mathematics and Natural History j
and he was universally beloved and esteemed, for his respectable talents and the amiable disposition of
his mind.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 107

this great surge there are some few lesser surges seen, which are gradually less
towards both the east and west.

FurtJier Solutions of AUiazerCs Problem \ being a Continuation of the Extracts of
Letters from M. Huygens and M, Slusius. N° 98, p. 6 140. Translated
from the Latin.

j4nd \st, M. Huygens, in a Letter of April 9, 1672, says: The following is
the compendium which I discovered for the first construction, communicated to
you before. Drawing AT parallel to CB (fig. 1. pi. 4,) which being bisected in
V, gives the point through which one of the opposite hyperbolas ought to pass,
the asymptotes of which were found to be YM, MN. — But the construction
which obtains in all cases is as follows: Let ED (fig. 2,) be the given circle,
whose centre is A; also B and C the given points. Drawing the lines AB,
AC, make the following lines proportionals, viz. BA, the radius of the
circle, and FA ; also CA, the radius of the circle, and GA. Then join FG,
and bisect it in H; through which draw LHK, MHN intersecting at right
angles, the former LHK being parallel to that which bisects the angle BAG.
Then are these the two asymptotes of the hyperbolas to be described through
the points F and G, and one of which will pass through the centre A ; and
their intersections with the periphery of the given circle will be the points of
reflexion sought.

Again by Slusius, who, in consequence of the above, writes as follows. — The ex-
cellent Huygens's construction is very simple and ingenious. And he has well
observed how the equilateral hyperbola may be extended to all the cases, which
as I before hinted, immediately offered itself in the case of a right angle. Also
that one ellipsis of an easy construction, might be selected out of the infinite
number which might be used : but it is tedious to dwell so long on the same
problem. But one thing still remains of no unpleasant speculation : that is,
since the sections which, with the given circle, are employed for the solution of
the given problem, cut it in four points, of which only two can serve for the
reflexion : it may be inquired, what problem is solved by the two others; and
how the proposition may be expressed that shall include all the four cases; and
whether these four cases occur when the given points are equally distant from
the centre.

M. Huygens employs no other than my analysis, which admits of a para-
bola only in one case ; as appears from the two equations for the hyperbola about
its asymptotes, which I before sent you ;

viz. 2 zbaa — 2 znae — qqba -\- qqne = bzqq — "Z-qqe,
and bzqq — 2znae — qqba -|- qqne =z2zbee — zqqe: •

P 2

e>

108 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANS ACTIONiS. [aNNO 1673.

And I added, that by a small variation, viz. substituting for example, for qq its
value aa -^ ee, there may be found an infinite number of hyperbolas and ellipses^
which, with the given circle, would solve the problem. Now, in the former of
these equations, for bzqq put its value, and it gives zhaa — 2znae — qqba -\-

7 qqa qqe , 2nae qqne

qqne = bzee — zqqe. or aa --^— = ee — —- i^ — .

■'■' .11 2 b * b zb

And this is the very equation, which that learned gentleman has constructed
with so much ease and ingenuity.

^gain, writes M. Slmins, I happened lately on the following construction,
which I submit to your judgment and censure, as I think a shorter can hardly be
found. Let the given points be E, B, (fig. 3,) and the circle whose centre is A;
join EA, B A., cutting the circle in Fand C ; make the three proportionals EA,
F A, VA, and the three others BA, CA, XA: then VX being joined, and pro-
duced at pleasure, with the vertex X, diameter VX, and latus rectum equal to it,
describe the hyperbola XP, whose ordinates to the diameter VXG are parallel to
AB. For this satisfies the proposition in the case of the convex speculum, and
its opposite in the case of the concave one. As to the asymptotes, they will be
easily found by producing VX till it meets EB produced in L; then bisecting
VXin I, and taking LD equal to LI; for joining DI, it will be one of the
asymptotes, which the other meets perpendicularly at L

But perhaps it will not be unacceptable to you to know how I arrived at this
construction. This then I deduced from my former analysis as follows : the
same things being given as before, demit AO perpendicular toEB, (fig. 4,) and
let P be the required point, from which draw PR perpendicular to AO. Put
AO = h, EO = z, OB = d, AP = q, PR = e, AR = a ; then is easily deri-

, ,1 . ,. 2 zdae + 2 bbae — 2 bqqe , qqa ^ • % ^

ved this equation, "hZTfl 1- ee = aa — ^-, which may be

, 1 • , i^i zdae + bbae — bqqe qqa

changed into these ^~bd — ~ ^^ ~ '^99 ~~ 2 P

1 zdae -{-bbae — bqqe ^^ qqa

^"^ Tb^Tbd h ee — ^qq -j.

I formerly sent you the construction of this last; and M. Huygens has sent
you the construction of the other. As to this one indeed, though I at once
perceived it, yet I rather neglected it, as the construction seemed to be difficult.
But I find I had been deterred by a groundless fear, as I have lately found it
lead me to this construction, which I now send you. To abridge the calcula-
tion, make z — d z= k, and zd~\- bb = bm; then it will be ee -f- r- — ^

qqa , , ,. q"^ + mmaa — 2 qqma 1, lU -j -i. •

=: aa — ^-; and adding -^—^^ rr — on both sides, it is ee -f

2mae-2jqe_ _^ q^ + .nmaa- 2 gqma ^ ^^^^ .^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ _^ ma-jq^ ^^^^^^
qqa , q^ + mmaa ~ 2 qqma ,. , . ... ,. ,, jj ,

to aa — -^ h 7-7 ^ — ; which gives this proportion, A A : kk -f mm::

VOL. VIII. ] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. lOQ

kkqqa , a* — 2qqma ., r t ma — qq ... ,

aa — TTJ—^, h , , . : the square of e H 7—^; which may be re-

bkk ->r bmm ' kk + 7/im ^ ' k ' •'

ky

diiced to a simpler equation, by putting kh + ^^ = pp) and -^ = «, for it then

becomes the square of e--^ + ^=y^ — -^^ — ~i^- + il' "^^'^^^
equation you will find to answer to the above construction, by applying the cal-
culation ; and you will at the same time observe, that to which ever of the
lines EA, AB, BE, the analysis is referred, the same sections may be always
obtained, though by a longer process, and by very different equations.

From this construction, by analogy, may be deduced the solution of the
other problem, viz. to determine a point, from which a ray may be reflected
parallel to any given line. Thus, if B be the given luminous point, A the
centre of the circle, (fig. 5,) and the reflected ray be parallel to AE. For this
is the same thing as if, in the other problem, the distance of the points A and E
be supposed infinite ; in which case the third proportional to EA, FA, becomes
nothing, and the points A and V coincide: therefore VX will be equal to AX,
and AE parallel to PE. Apply therefore the former construction, and you solve
the problem: viz. to the vertex X, transverse diameter VX or AX, and latus
rectum equal to it, describe the hyperbola XP, whose ordinates to the diame-
ter AX are parallel to AE.

j4gain, M. Huygens, July 1, 1672, writes as follows.
It is true, and indeed wonderful, that the construction I formerly sent you,
may also be found by M. Slusius's calculation, after changing qqfor aa -f- ee.
But this seems only to happen by chance, nor does the simplicity of the con-
struction here appear till after close application to it.

To repeat Alhazeris Problem, viz. Having given a circle, whose centre is A,
its radius AD, and two points B, C ; to find a point H in the circumference of
the given circle, whence drawing the lines HB, HC, they shall make equal
angles at the circumference (fig. Q).

Suppose it found; and drawing AM, which bisects the angle BAG, and per-
pendicular to it draw HT, BM, CL. Then join AH, and make HE perpendi-
cular to it, and let AM meet BH and HC in the points K, G. .
Now put AM = a Then because the angles KHE and CHZ or EGH
MB = Z) are equal, and as EH A is a right angle, it will be, as
AL = c KE to EG, so is KA to AG. And because BM is to
LC = n MD, as HF to FK, it will be as BM + HF to HF,
Radius AD = c/ so MY toYY., ov h + y.y.-.a ^ x -. ~f=^l ; add FA

FH =2/ or JT, and it makes KA = -'!'—; — -,

1 10 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

Again, because CL is to LG as HF to FG, it will be, by permutation and
division, as CL — HF to HF so LF to FG, that is n — y\y wc — x :

'±IlIL. which taken from AF = x, leaves GA = !i^Ilf^. And EA =
— , because FA, AH, AE are proportionals: Therefore EA — GA, that is
EG = -^ - ai-liiy-, and KA - EA or KE = i^^±^ - ^. But we said

X n — y b + y X

that KE is to EG as KA to AG,

,, , . ay + bx dd dd nx — cy ay + bx nx — cy

that is -f-f : : : -^^— : ^;

0 + y X X fi — y 0 + y n — x

hence is r lanxxy + 2 hnx^ — ddhnx — ddnxy ■> naddy -|- nbddx

found 1 — 2acxyy — ibcxxy + ddhcy + ddcyy j — addyy — hddxy.

. , , be ., . 2bbcx^ bbddcx Qbbcyyx , , ,

And because n = — , it is ^-^ , because xx =z ad — ijy,

a ' a a a ' J J

_, ., . Ibbcx^ 2bbcddx 2bbcyyx •, , ,

But it IS = ^^^, because xx = dd — ?/?/.

a a a ^ ^^

Therefore — ^^^ __c£j/ __ ^acxyy + ddcyy = — addyy — hddxy.

Then dividing all by y and multiplying by a, it

is — ihhcxy — ddhcx — laacxy + ddcay = — aaddy — hddax,

or ahddx — chddx + acddy + aaddy = laacxy -j- ibbcxy,

. , abddx — cbddx + acddy + aaddy ,. , .i i i i

^^^^ 2aac + 2bbc — ^^ ^^ equation to the hyperbola.

_ , , abddx — anddx + acddy 4- aaddy

Or, because be = na, , ,,,/ = xy.

^ ' 2aac + 2bbc -J

Pnf _f^l_ - /,. then P^^'^-P^'^'+P'^y + P^y _ ^y

Hence also is easily found the following construction : Join BA, AC (fig. 7),
and applying to each separately the square of the radius AD, they give AP,
AQ ; then joining PQ, bisect it in R, through which draw RD parallel to AD,
(which bisects the angle BAC) and RN perpendicular to it. Then will RD,
RN be the asymptotes of the opposite hyperbola, the one of which ought to
pass through the centre A, and they will cut the circumference in the points
H sought. The hyperbolas will also pass through the points P, Q.

The reason of the construction is manifest, by drawing P-y and Q(^ perpen-
dicular to AM : for it makes Ay = ^J ^^ or p; and AJ = — . Also Py =

^, and QC = ^. Therefore AG = ■^^^, and OR = ^^-^. Hence
c ' ^^ c 2c ' 2c

the rest is easy.

To the above M. Slusius replies as below.

You will not wonder, learned Sir, that in Alhazen's problem, the same con^
struction may be deduced from different equations, since all those that we have

TOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. Ill

as yet used, are contained in one and the same general analysis. Now to show
this, let there be given the circle, whose centre is A, (fig. 8), also the points H
and I ; and let there be required the point K, to which, from the points H and
I, let there be drawn HK, IK, and the tangent KD. Then, from A draw any
line AG, meeting HK in E, IK in B, and the tangent KD in D, producing
such of the lines as are necessary. This done, it is plain, because of the equal
angles EKD, DKB, and the right angle AKD, that the three lines AE, BE,
DE, will be always harmonical proportionals. Therefore drawing KC, IF,
H G perpendicular to AE, and calling

AK, q then by the method I formerly used in the second analysis of this
AC, a problem, we have this general equation, ndaa — bzaa — nqqa 4-
CK, e hqaa = ndee — zhee + ibnae + 2zdae — dqqe — zqqe. Sup-
HG, b pose now AG to be perpendicular to HI, there will be no variation
AG, d in the equation, except that AF and AG, that is d and z, will be
FA, z equal. Putting therefore d for z, it makes ndaa — bdaa — nqqa -\-
FI, ??, bqqa = ndee — dbee -\- ibnae + iddae — idqqe; or dividing

,, , , 7, ^, qqa . 2bnae + Iddae — 2dqqe i • i . ,

all by ?za — db, then a a ~- = ee -{ d — db ^' which is the

very same that I deduced from my first analysis, though by a different way, and
which I lately sent you, constructed after an easy manner.

Next suppose AG to coincide with AH; then HG or Z' will become nothing.
Expunging therefore out of the equation all the terms in which b is found, there
will remain ndaa — nqqa = ndee -{- 2zdae — dqqe — qqze. And this, you
may recollect, I gave as my second thoughts, and another similar to it, for the
case in which AG passes through I.

Again, let us suppose AG to bisect the angle HAI; then, because of the
similar triangles HAG, lAF, it will be, as HG to GA, so IF to FA, or as
b'.d'.:n:z, and nd =. bz. Then, taking away equals, it is bqqa — nqqa =
2bnae + Izdae — dqqe — qqze : the very same, as I perceive by your letter,
which M. Huygens has constructed.

Lastly, suppose HG to bisect HI ; therefore HG = IG, or b =: n; and, by

taking away equals, it is bdaa — bzaa = bdee — bzee -{- 2bbae -}- Izdae

dqqe — qqze; which, though not very difficult, none of us has yet constructed.
But these, as well as the general equation itself, may be divided into two others,
by putting, as you know, for aa ov ee, its value qq — ee or qq — aa.

You see then, whatever has hitherto been done, is resolved into the same
analysis ; which comprehends also infinite other constructions by the given
circle and an hyperbola. But it is of no great consequence to investigate them
since in this problem, though formerly solutions were wanting, yet now there

112 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

are plenty. I shall add only a construction by a parabola, and that in two ways ;
which though it may seem more operose than by an hyperbola, yet the simpli-
city of this curve compensates for the labour, as in that respect the parabola has
an advantage over the other conic sections.

The same things then being given; join AI (fig. 9), and produce it to S, till
AS be equal to AH; then joining HS, and bisecting IS in M, through M
draw RMQ perpendicular to HS, on which demit the perpendicular AQ,
parallel to which draw the radius AC. Then, forming the three proportionals
AI, AC, AE, make as SA to AE so MQ to AD and so RS to AP (towards
Q in the line AQ) ; and in the same line, on the other side, take DO = DC.
Then, bisecting PD in X, let VXL, drawn through X, make with AX half a
right angle, meeting in V the perpendicular erected at D, and on which demit
the perpendicular OB. I say, if there be made as VX to XB, so XB to BL .
then L is the vertex, LV the axis, and XV the latus rectum of the parabola,
which satisfies the problem in every case; viz. cutting the given circle in the
points K, of which the highest and lowest belong to Alhazen's problem, and the
rest to another problem, concerning which I lately wrote to you.

There may also be given another parabola, as was hinted above, which will
perform the same thing as this, and the description of which is so easily de-
duced from this, that there is no occasion for a new one. For let A^be
taken = DA and in that direction, and Aw = OA and in that direction. Then
bisecting P(^ in ^, draw 8^(3 perpendicular to XB, meeting ^a, perpendicular to
OA, in 8, and on it demit the perpendicular w|3; also make as «^ to ^f3, so ^(3
to (3x : Then x will be the vertex, x^ the axis, and ag the lastus rectum of the
parabola, which will cut the given circle in the same points with the former.

On thejirst Invention and Demonstration of a Right Line equal to a Curve. In a
Letter from Dr. IVallis, Oxf. Oct. 4, 1673. Translated from the Latin.
N°98, p. 6146.

Learned Sir — As to the rectification of that curve, which I have used to call
the semicubical paraboloid, M. Huygens must be under a great mistake, when
(in his horologium oscillatorium, p. 71? 72.,) he ascribes the first invention of
it to John Heuraet of Harlem, in the year 1659. For it is certain, that it was
discovered and demonstrated two years before, by Mr. Wm. Neil,* an English-

* This ingenious young gentleman was the eldest son of Sir Paul Neil, Knt. one of the ushers of
the privy chamber to King Cha. I. and was grandson of Dr. Rd. Neil, aixhbishop of York. He was
born Dec. 7 , l637, and was educated at Oxford, where he became gentleman commoner of Wad-
ham-college, in l6"52, for the sake of Dr. Wilkins the warden 3 by whose instructions, and those of

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 113

man, son of Sir Paul Neil. And after him, the same was demonstrated by the
Lord Brouncker, and by Sir Christopher Wren, about the months of June and
July, 1657 : which was a thing well known here ; and it was published and re-
ceived with applause by those gentlemen, who, before the institution of the
Royal Society, used to meet on stated days at the mathematical lectures in
Gresham College. And the Lord Brouncker communicated the same to me at
Oxford, by letter the ensuing August; and at the same time he sent me his owrt
demonstration of it. This I communicated exactly by letter to M. Huygens,
and afterwards annexed it to my treatise on the cycloid, in 1659, with an impar-
tial account of the whole aftair. So that it is surprising how M. Huygens should
make Heuraet the first inventor of it.

In the year l658, Sir Chr. Wren had discovered a right line equal to the
cycloidal curve, and its several parts; as was then well known, not in England
only, but also in France and Holland; and in particular M. Huygens himself was
acquainted with it, even before he knew any thing of Heuraet's discovery, as
appears by his letter to me. And though it be allowed that Sir Chr. Wren was
the inventor of this, yet he never pretended that he was the first who found
out a right line equal to a curve ; for he knew, and he owns as much, that Mr.
Neil had discovered it the year before him. Only he assumes this prerogative
to himself, that he had rectified the first curve that offered; whereas Mr. Neil
applied himself rather to find oat a curve that should admit of rectification. It
is true that this curve is of the tribe of the paraboloids; but no one before Mr.
Neil took it into consideration. And it is as true that both Mr. Neil's and M.
Heuraet's is the very same curve.

Two others on the same Subject. The^rst of the Right Hon. Lord Plsct. Brouncker,
Chancellor to her Majesty, and P. R. S. &c. N° 98, p. 6149.
Sir, — Mr. William Neil, in the year 1 65 7 5 found out and demonstrated a
straight line equal to a paraboloid ; and communicated the same to others,
who used to meet at Gresham College, and it was there received with good
approbation; and the same was soon after demonstrated by myself and
others; and therefore earlier than that of M. Heuraet, which it seems

Dr. Seth Ward, he greatly cultivated and improved his genius in mathematics. His success in that
study appeared as early as l6o7, at 19 years of age, when he, first of all men, accurately rectified a
curve line, as appears by the above letter of Dr. Wallis, and the two next following ones, of Lord
Brouncker and Sir Chr. Wren. — Mr. Neil became an early member of the Royal Society, of which he
was elected a fellow in Jan. l6()3. His theory of motion was communicated to the Society, April 29,

1669. But the further expectations, which had been conceived of his genius in mathematical and
philosophical subjects, were disappointed by his early deatl), which happened the 524th of August,

1670, in the 33d year of his age.

VOL. II. Q • '

114 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOXS. [anNO 1673.

is not pretended to have been done before the year 1659 ; and earlier too
than that of Sir Ch. Wren, finding a straight line equal to a cycloid in the
year l658; and by him admitted so to be. Nor ought it at all to prejudice Mr.
Neil, that M. Heuraet's was somewhat sooner abroad in print, than that of M.
Neil, though both in the same year 1659 ; since it is well known to many of us,
that Mr. Neil's was done before. Otherwise M. Huygens, by the same reason,
will grant the precedency to Heuraet, of that which he now claims to be his
own invention (that rectifying the parabolical line, and squaring the hyperbolical
space, do mutually depend on each other:) for this was published in print by M.
Heuraet (or M. Schooten for him) in the year 1659, ^"^1 not by M. Huygens till
now, 1673 : and yet M. Huygens thinks, he may well claim that invention to
be his own, because he now tells us, that he found it out about the end of the
year ]657, and did, some time after, communicate it privately to some friends.
And whereas, he supposes that this invention of his might give occasion to that
other of Heuraet; we may also as well suppose, that he might have taken such
occasion from hearing of Mr. Neil having done the like, for this had been then
commonly known for a great while: or might have taken occasion, as well as
Mr. Neil, from that of Dr. Wallis Schol. prop. 38. Arith. Infin. or from that of
Sir Ch. Wren having found a straight equal to another curve the year before:
or if it were necessary to know the symbolization between the parabolical line
and the hyperbolical space, he might have had it earlier from Dr. Wallis. For
when he had demonstrated (Schol. prop. 38. Ar. Infin.) that the particles which
compose the parabolical line, are in power equal to a series of squares increased
by a series of equals, suppose s/ : A^ + Z? -: and (prop. 35, 41, conic, sect.) that
c the ordinates to the conjugate diameter of an hyperbola, that is, the particles
of which that hyperbolical space consists, are so also, viz. y':-i-T^ +| A'^: where
A, T, L, are permanent quantities, and h, h, taken successively in arithmetical
progression ; it was easy for M. Heuraet, or M. Huygens, or any other, to
infer, that if we can rectify the one, we may square the other, and vice versa.
But from whencesoever M. Heuraet had it, we may, as before, reasonably con-
clude, that Mr. Neil had it before him ; and M. Huygens is a person of that
ingenuity, that when he shall better consider of it, he will I doubt not be of the
same mind. London, Oct. 8, 1673.

The other Letter is of Sir Chr. Wren, Knt. Surveyor General of his Majesty's

Buildings, &c.

Sir, That I did, in the year l658, find a straight line equal to that of a
cycloid, and the parts thereof, was then very well known, not in England only,
but in France and Holland. And I have not yet heard of any, who do pretend

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 115

to have known it before I discovered it: which was the same year acknowledged
in print by those of France. But I do not pretend to have been the first that
did ever find a straight hne equal to a crooked. For I very well know,
that Mr. William Neil had, the year before, found out and demonstrated, how
to construct a crooked line so as to be equal to a straight, by a certain series of
numbers after the method of Dr. Wallis. And though he did not therein de-
monstrate the other properties of that line; yet the same were presently after
demonstrated by myself and others, and the nature of the line fully discovered,
being a certain paraboloid. And that which M. Heuraet is said afterwards to
have found out, in the year 1659, andM. Fermat in the year 1660, are but the
same with that of Mr. Neil.

^n Account of a Booh. N° 98, p. 6l51. viz.

De Corpore Animato Libri quatuor, seu promotae per Experimenta Philo-
sophiag Specimen alterum; Auth. Johanne Baptista Du Hamel P. S. L. Par.
1673, in 12mo.

A work for the most part metaphysical ; and though written with great learn-
ing, yet superseded by the essays of later writers on these subjects.

Of Stones in the Bladder, By Mr. Chr. Kirkhy. N° 99, p. 6l55.

Although I find, in Numb. 26, of your Phil. Trans, an account of 96 stones
taken out of one bladder; yet I hope this of 38 stones will not be unacceptable,
since several of them were large, and of the lesser sort some were triangular and
quadrangular; their flats worn to a great smoothness, and thetr corners blunted.
The greatest stone w^eighed 206 grains; the least 3 grains; and all the 38
weighed 4-|- ounces. The matter of the stones is very compact, and like white
clay; and though the several coats may be discerned in one of them which I
broke, yet they are not easily separable. But what I wonder at most is, that in
the dissection of the kidneys and ureters, not any sign of stone or gravel was to
be found.

The following is the Relation as made by Casparus JVendland, Surgeon of Dantzic,

Translated from the German.

Mr. John Braun, a gentleman of 71 years of age, being dead, I was desired
to open his body, to see whether we could find the cause of the excessive pains
he had endured, for two years and a half, in the penis, with a continual cutting,
burning, and pressing of his urine, coming from him drop by drop; until at last
it came to a constant endeavour of going to stool and of making water^ which,

q2

Il6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

a few weeks before his death, ended in a continual running of urine, with very
sharp pain ; after which, about four days before his death, the water was totally
stopped. He being dead, on opening the body I observed the following parti-
culars: viz. The internal parts being all carefully examined, we found no defect
in them till we came to the bladder, which being taken out, we found it quite
full of stones, of which the largest was of the size of a pigeon's egg. Of the
larger sort there were l6, yet differing in size. The 22 others were very small.
Not a drop of urine was found in the bladder; but it had already made, on the
side of the orifice of the bladder, an opening of a considerable size, which im-
mediately caused death. In the kidneys and ureters there could not be found
the least grain or mark of sand.

Of an Uticommon Foetus. In a Letter from M. Denys, at Paris. Translated
from the Frerich. N° QQ, p. 6l57.

A few days ago, I was called to a sick woman just brought to bed. After I
bad prescribed the physic I judged necessary, I asked for the child, which died,
I heard, as soon as it was born. The body of it appeared outwardly very well
formed, and very fat ; but the head was so deformed, that it frightened all that
were present. It had no front; the two eyes were on the top of the face, very
large, and almost without an orbit to lodge them in. The upper and hind part
of the head was red like coagulated blood, and resembled the bottom of a calve's
head, when cut and severed from the vertebras of the neck. I had the curiosity
to examine this red flesh, and found under it a bone, not a hollow skull, but a
solid bone in the form of a small oyster. I had it opened every way ; but found
no hollowness or brains in it. This bone was only fastened before to the bones
of the face, and not behind to the vertebrae of the neck ; so that the marrow of
the back bone had no communication with the head. I pursued the optic-
nerves^ and lost them in this bone, which was in lieu of the cranium, and was
not at all spongy, but very hard. It seems to me somewhat extraordinary, that
a child should be able to live nine months without brains; for I was informed,
that it was very lively and brisk in the womb, but died as soon as it came into
the air.

Account of some Natural Curiosities presented to the Royal Society , ly Sig. Paulo
Boccone, of Sicily. N° QQ, p. 6 158.

The first were uncommon pieces of coral, red and white; some of which
were ramified into solid massy bodies; others were coralline buttons or flowers;
in some of which the presenter, on squeezing them, found a lacteous juice.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1 h7

And being present at the coral-fishing in the channel of Messina, which sepa-
rates Calabria from Sicily, he relates, that before the coral-fishers drew their
nets out of the water, he immersed his hand and arm into the sea, to feel whe-
ther the coral was soft under the water before it was drawn up into the air, and
found it quite hard, except the round end, or button, above-mentioned; which
having been bruised with his nails, he found it made up of five or six little cells,
full of a white and somewhat mucilaginous liquor, resembling that milky juice,
found in summer in the long cods of the herb, called Fluvialis pisana foliis den-
ticulatis, mentioned by Joh. Bauhinus. This coralline juice he calls leven, be-
cause of the sharp and astringent taste, in such pieces as came recently out of
the sea ; those that are dried losing that part of the taste which is acrimonious,
and retaining only that which is astringent : which change of taste he affirms to
be made in about six hours after the coral has been drawn up ; in which time
also the leven, that is inclosed in the pores, is dried, and has changed its colour.

As to the question whether coral be a vegetable, M. Guisony is of opinion,
that so far from being a plant, it is a mere mineral, composed of much salt and a
little earth; and that it is formed into that substance by a precipitation of divers
salts, that ensues upon the encounter of the earth with those salts; after the
manner of the known metallic tree, which in a very little time is formed and
increased by the settling and combination of mercury and silver, dissolved in
aqua fortis, and afterwards cast into common water ; the parts of this mineral
and metal uniting with each other. This sentiment he confirms by alleging,
that he can show a salt of coral, which being cast into water, and there dissolved
on the evaporation of the water by a gentle heat is presently coagulated, and
converted into many small sticks, resembling a little forest.

The second was a certain stony scaly substance, that scented of bitumen, com-
plicated and laid together membrane like, and found in the Hyblean mountains
of Sicily, near Millelli, near the town of Augusta, and the ancient Megara. Being
burnt in a candle, the bituminous smell will soon be perceived; and it is affirmed,
that this stony body, being recently severed from its mine and bed, is flexible like
paper; but being long exposed to the air and sun becomes brittle. And the
herbs that grow on this stone, insinuate their fibres and roots between its seve-
ral coats.

Thirdly, an extraordinary sanguisuga or leech, found sticking to the fish
called Xiphias or sword-fish, slightly mentioned by Gesnerinhis book de Aqua-
tilibus, and Johnston in his book de Piscibus.* Our presenter gives it the name
of Hirudo or Acus cauda utrinque pennata, because of its working itself into the

• It is the Fennatulafilosa of Linnaeus.

118 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1673.

flesh, and sucking the blood of the said fish. It is about 4 inches long; its
belly white, cartilaginous, and transparent ; without eyes or head, that could be
observed, but instead of a head, it had a hollow snout, encompassed with a very
hard membrane, differing in colour and substance from the belly; which snout
it thrusts into the body of the fish, as strongly as an augur is wound into a piece
of wood, and fills it full of blood to the very orifice. It has a tail shaped .like a
feather, serving for its motion ; and under it, two filaments or slender fibres,
longer than the whole insect, by which it seems to cling about stones or
herbs, and stick the closer in the body of the sword-fish ; attacking those
parts only, where the fins of the fish cannot touch or trouble it. Within its
belly he observed some vessels, like small guts, reaching from one end of it to
the other, which by the pressure of his nail he made reach to the orifice of the
snout, whence they retired back of themselves to their natural situation. They
seem to be the instruments for sucking the blood, because the snout is in itself
an empty part, destitute of fibres and valves to draw and suck with ; whereas
these vessels have a motion resembling that of a pump, in which the snout of
this animal serves for a sucker, drawing the blood from one end to the other:
and the belly of this insect being framed ring-wise, this structure serves to
thrust the said inner vessels into the orifice of the trunk, and to draw them back
again. As it torments the swordfish, so is itself infested by another insect,
which he calls a louse, of an ash colour, fastened towards the tail of this leech,
as firmly as a sea snail is to a rock. It is of the size of a pea, and has an open-
ing, whence come out many small winding and hairy threads.

Fourthly, a parcel of sal ammoniac, brought from Sicily, where it had been
gathered in the late fiery eruption of Mount -^tna, found on the surface of
that ferruginous matter, which remained of the burnt minerals. Some of this
salt was as yellow as saffron; some like citron-colour; some white, and some
greenish. This seemed to be a factitious salt, such as is sold in shops, being a
concrete of nitre, sulphur and vitriol burnt and sublimed, and not pre-existing
in those caverns; adding some of this sal ammoniac to pulverised sulphur and
nitre, he found, that it was so far from being kindled by fire, that it manifestly
hindered the ascension of the brimstone and salt-petre, which were even extin-
guished by it, as if water had been poured on them.

Lumv adjixas Jlppuhus, Derhice j4nno \QjA. Ohservahiles, ah Ephemeride Doct,
D. Heckeri deducti, et hrevihus notis descripti, c) J. Flamsteed. N° 99, p. 6162.
Not now sufficiently interesting to be reprinted.

An Account of some Boohs. N° 99, p. 61 66.
I. Pharmaceutice Rationalis, sive Diatriba de Medicamentorum Operationibus

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IJQ

in Humane Corpore: Auth. Tho. Willis, M. D. in Univ. Oxon. Prof. Sedleiano,
nee non Coll. Med. Lond. et Societ. Reg Socio. E. Theat. Shel. 1673, in 4to.
This book being in the possession of most physicians, an analysis of it is
deemed superfluous.

II. Johannis Hevelii Machinae Celestis Pars prior, Organographiam Astrono-
micam plurimis Iconibus illustratam et exornatam exhibens, &c. Ged. 1673,
in fol.

The famous author of this work, having given us in the preface a learned
account of the origin and progress of astronomy, and of the succession of the
chief astronomers from the beginning, among whom he accounts the most emi-
nent to have been Hipparchus, Ptolomy, Copernicus and Brahe ; and having
also taken notice of the advancement made of that science in our age, in Eng-
land, Germany, France, Italy, &c. and considered that without a due restitution
of the fixed stars to their places, nothing considerable and accurate could be per-
formed by astronomers, for establishing the motion of the planets, and for per-
fecting astronomy; he resolved to apply himself with all care and diligence to
that work: for the prosecution of which, a great apparatus of instruments being
requisite, he gives in this volume an ample description of them ; reserving the
observations themselves for another volume, already committed to the press.

In this vol. then, he first treats in general of the instruments used both by
the ancients and moderns, and of what is chiefly, remarkable in them. Secondly,
describes in particular his own instruments, especially those that are made of
solid metal, his quadrants, sextants, octants, &c. Thirdly, as astronomy has
been greatly improved by telescopes, he takes occasion to mention what glasses
have been made, by himself and others, especially one that draws 140 feet, made
and presented to him out of Poland, by Signor Burattini. Lastly, he subjoins
a discourse on his skill and way of grinding glasses of a hyperbolical figure,
and of his actual performances therein.

His thoughts on telescopical sights, and his exceptions against them, delivered
page 294 et seqq, we leave to the consideration of those, that prefer them to the
common ones.

III. A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvage of the World, &c. By N. Fairfax,
M. D. London, l673.

IV. Apologema pro Urinis Humanis; Auth. Antonio Eygel, M. D. et Prac
tico Amstelodamensi. Amstelod, 1672, in 8vo.

On a Subterraneous Fungus, and a Mineral Juice. By M. Lister. N° 100,

p. 6179.
The fungus subterraneus is found in a rocky lime-stone ground, on a com-

120 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO lO/S.

mon about two miles from Castleton in the Peak of Derbyshire, 15 or l6 yards
deep in the Old Man, as they call a mine formerly wrought, and now stopped
up, covered with earth, that had either fallen or was thrown in. There is no
coal-bed hitherto discovered within five or six miles of the place. This fungus
does not seem to me to have any constant shape; the pieces that I received are
much like peat or turf, both in the sooty colour and inward substance ; only this
is more clammy and tough, and does not dry. And some of this fungus sub-
stance is very soft, and like jelly. In and about the more solid pieces, are many
large lumps of a bituminous substance, which is very inflammable, like rosin.
It is light and breaks firm, and shines like good aloes; being also somewhat like
it in colour, save that it is darker and purpleish ; yet there is much of it of a
dark green colour. We distilled a part of it, which yielded an acidulous limpid
water ; then a white liquor, probably from some of the oily parts precipitated ;
and in the last place, a copious yellow oil, not unlike that of amber or pitch.
Whether this fungus owes its original to a vegetable, or is truly a concrete
mineral juice, and a fossil bitumen, I forbear to determine; but the finding of
it in an old mine, favours much the opinion of its being a vegetable substance;
either the very substance of the props of wood, used in lining and supporting the
grooves, are thus altered, or certain funguses grow out of them. That birch,
of which there is great plenty, and has been vast woods in all these mountainous
parts 6f England, will yield a bitumen, as limpid as the sap which runs from it
by tapping, if we now had the skill to extract it: Pliny is very express, 1. i6,
c. 18. Bitumen ex Betula Galli excoquunt. And besides it is certain, that much
of that wood, if not all, which is dug up in the high moors of Craven, and which
the people use there for candles, and call candle-wood, is no other than birch,
as it appears from the grain and the bark ; though it exudes a rosin, which
makes many pronounce it real fir-wood. Whatever this bitumen is, which
this fungus subterraneus yields, it differs much from the asphaltum of the
shops.

There is another mineral juice in these parts of England, resembling cream
both in colour and consistence. It was found in great quantities at the bottom
of a coal-pit, 49 yards deep. At SherifF-Hales, in Shropshire, in the iron mines,
especially that which the country people call the white mine, which yields the
best iron-stone. On the breaking of a stone, they commonly meet with a great
quantity of a whitish milky liquor, inclosed in its centre; sometimes they find
the quantity of a hogshead contained in one cavity. Its taste is sweetish, only
it has a vitriolic and iron-like twang.

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 121

Of Trochitce and Entrochi* By Mr. Lister. N° 100, p. 6I8I.

I send you an account of some of the parts of certain stones figured like
plants ; which Agricola (5° fossilium) calls trochitae, and the compound ones
entrochi ; we in English, St. Cuthert's beads. Agricola thinks them akin, for
substance, to the lapides judaici; and indeed these are of an opaque and dark
coloured spar ; though some are of a white spar or cawke, as the miners call it :
they all break like flint, pollished and shining. Put into vinegar, they bubble,
and are dissolved. But this is true of all fossils, whatever their figure may be,
that vinegar will corrode and dissolve as a menstruum ; provided they be broken
into small grains, and if the bottom of the vessel hinder not, they will be moved
from place to place by it.

The figure of trochitae is cylindrical; the utmost round or circle is in general
smooth ; both the flat sides are thick drawn with fine and small rays, from a
certain hole in the middle to the circumference. Two, three, or more of
these trochitas joined together, make up that other stone, called entrochos.
The trochitae or single joints are so set together, that the rays of the one enter
into the furrows of the other, as in the sutures of the skull. They are found
very plentifully in the scars at Braughton and Stock, small villages in Craven.

As to their size, I never yet met with any much above two inches about ;
others are as small as the smallest pin, and of all magnitudes between these two.
They are all broken bodies ; some shorter pieces, some longer, and some of
them real trochitae, that is, single joints only. I never found one entire piece
much above two inches long, and that very rarely too ; in some of which long
pieces, I have reckoned about 30 joints. And as they are all broken fragments,
so they are found scattered, and lying confusedly in the rock ; which in some
places, where they are to be had, is as hard as marble ; in other places soft and
shelly, as they call it, that is, rotten and perished with the wet and air. And
though in some places are but sprinkled here and there in the rock, yet
there are whole beds of rock of vast extent, which for the most part consist of
these, and other figured stones, as of bivalve, serpentine, turbinate, &c. as at
Braughton.

The injuries they have received in their removal from the natural position,
if not the place of their growth and formation, are manifest. For, besides their
being all broken bodies, many of them are depressed and crushed, resembling

* The petrified bodies described in this paper belong to different species of the coral tribe, and
principally to tliose of tlie Linnaean genus isis. Those at fig. 25 and 26 are the knots or thicker joints
«f some radiated isis, and are allied to the species called by Linnaeus isis entrocha.

VOL. II. R

122 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

the real cracks as of a stone or glass. Again^ such stones as consist of many
vertebrae or joints, are many of them strangely distorted; sometimes two, three,
or more of the joints in a piece are dislocated and out of their places; and some-
times a whole series of them. Others seem twisted like a cord. Lastly, some
have their joints regular, but stuffed with a foreign matter, as when bricks are
laid in mortar.

There is great variety as to the thickness of the trochitae or single joints :
some are so thin, that they are scarcely the 24th part of an inch; others are a
full quarter of an inch thick; of these latter I only found at Stock: there are
joints of all measures between these two extremes ; but they are mostly of an
equal thickness in one and the same piece : and there are slender and small
entrochi, which have as thick joints, as the largest and fairest pieces. — There
is also some difference in the seams of the joints : some are but apparently
jointed; which appears by this, that if they be eaten down a while in distilled
vinegar, the seeming sutures will vanish as in sorhe I had out of Staffordshire,
from about Beresford on the Dove : • others, and all here at Braughton and Stock,
are really jointed, and the sutures indented ; which indentures being from the
terminating of the rays, they are larger, according to the difference of the rays;
but even, equal and regular.

Generally the utmost circle of each joint is fiat and smooth ; yet are there
many other differences to be noted as to that part : very probably because they
are parts or pieces of different species of rock plants.

The Explanation of the Figures above described. See pi. 5 .

1. A trochites or single joint, with very fine and small rays. — 2. A trochites or
single joint, with the pith bored through like cinquefoil. — 3. A trochites or
single joint, of an oval figure, the rays scarcely apparent, and a very small point
in the place of the pith. — 4. A single joint of two of a middle size, with the
pith very large. — 5. A pack of single joints dislocated, and yet adhering in their
natural order. — 6. A very long entrochos, or a piece of many smooth joints,
with the branches broken of. — 7* An entrochos with smooth joints not branch-
ed.— 8. The largest entrochos I have yet seen, with stumps of branches. — g. A
smooth entrochos with very thin and numerous joints. — 10. The deepest jointed
entrochos, except the oval one in fig. 3. — 11. An entrochos with very many
disorderly knots in each joint. — 12. An entrochos with only one single circle of
knots in the middle of each joint. — 13. An entrochos with three circles of knots.
— 14. A smooth entrochos, with a large and much raised edge in the middle of
each joint. — 13. Alternate joints round or blunt. — 16. A double edg^ in the

VOL. VIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL JRANSACTPONS. 123

micklle of each joint. — 17. Alternate joints edged. — 18, 19, 20. Certain other
differences noted in the paper, but not perfectly expressed in the design. —
21. An entrochos with a branch of a good length. — 22. A branch of an entrochos
knocked off. — 23. An entrochos fruit-like. — 24. A fastigium or summitas. — 25. A
radix of an entrochos in perspective: where A is a joint or trochites yet remaining,
whence an entrochos was broken off. C, E, F, D, are four of the double feet ;
the 5th being hid. — 26. The same radix to be seen at the best advantage : A
the trochites or basis ; C, B, D, E, F, the five double feet. Note also the sex-
angular rough plates, which incrustate the stone or cover it all over. — 27. A
smaller radix with smooth plates and five single feet: H, the top stone ; I, one
of the five feet; K, one of the five angular plates which incrustate the middle of
the stone; G, the basis. Also the same stone in perspective; G, the same with
the hollow bottom upwards.

Figures of Plates supposed to incrustate divers Roots.

28. A pentagonal plate knotted. — 29. A thin edged smooth pentagonal plate. —
30. An indented pentagonal plate. — 31. The Northamptonshire pentagonal
plate. — 32. A large pentagonal smooth plate. — 33. An hexagonal plate, im-
bossed with angles. — 34. An hexagonal plate, as deep as broad. — 35, 37. Odd
figured plates. — 36. A quadrangular plate, ribbed and indented.

Mr. Ray relates, that there are found at Malta certain stones, called St. Paul's
batoons, which he supposes were originally a sort of rock-plants, like small
snagged sticks, but without any joints ; the trunks of which diminish according
to the proportion of other plants after the putting forth of their branches.

A farther Description and Representation of the Icy Mountain, called the Glet-
scher, in the Canton of Berne in Helvetia ; ivhich was formerly taken notice of
in N° 94 of these Tracts. N° 100, p. 619I.

This paper is not sufficiently important to require reprinting. For descrip-
tions of this and other glaciers, see Coxe's Travels through Switzerland.

A New Way hy an English Manifacture, to preserve the Hulls of Ships from the
JVorm, &c. ; better for sailing, and more cheap and durable than any Sheathing
or Graving hitherto used. N*^ 100, p. 6192.

The method of sheathing here alluded to, is not described in this paper. From
some hints thrown out, however, it is guessed to be principally a casing of thin
sheet lead. But whatever it was, it seems to have been long since laid aside,
in favour of the copperplate sheathing now commonly used.

r2

124 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1674.

jin Account of tivo Books. N° 100, p. 6194.

I. Musica Speculativa del Mengoli, Dottor dell' una et I'altra Legge, et P. P.
de scienze Mechaniche nello Studio di Bologna. Bolog. 1670, in 4to.

In this work, the author gives a minute anatomical description of the ear,
and the mechanism or manner in which he thinks sound is conveyed to the
mind, by the pulses of air acting on the ear. He afterwards treats on the theory
of music, after his own way.

II. Georgii Wedelii M. D. Specimen Experiment! Novi, de Sale Volatili
Plantarum. Franc. 1672, in l!2mo.

END OF VOLUME EIGHTH OF THE ORIGINAL.

Description of Nova Zemhla ; hy a Person at Amsterdam. N* 101, p. 3. Vol. IX.

I herewith send you what I have received out of Muscovy, which is a new
map of Nova Zembla and Weigats, as it has been discovered by the express
order of the Czar ; and drawn by a painter, called Panelapoetski, who sent it
to me from Moscow ; by which it appears, that Nova Zembla is not an island,
as hitherto it has been believed to be ; and that the Mare Glaciale is not a sea,
but a sinus or bay, the waters of which are sweet. Which is also affirmed by
the Tartars who have tasted those waters in the very middle of the bay. The
Samojeds, as well as the Tartars, unanimously affirm, that passing on the back of
Nova Zembla, at a considerable distance from the shore, navigators may well
pass as far as Japan. And it is a fault in the English and Dutch, that seeking
a passage to Japan on the south-side of Nova Zembla, they have almost always
passed the Weigats. The Weigats itself is very difficult to pass, because of the
great quantity of ice falling into it from the river Oby, by which the strait
passage is stopped up. The Samojeds go every year a fishing on the said sweet
sea, and that on Nova Zembla side.*

On extracting Volatile Salt and Spirit out of Vegetables. By Dr. Daniel Coxe,

F.R.S. N°ioi, p. 4.

In this paper, the author states that he has extracted from various vegetables

* Notwithstanding what is said in this paper, concerning Nova Zembla, and the north-eastern
passage to Japan and China, modern geography, and probably with reason, represents the first as an
island, and the voyage by that route as impracticable at least, if not impossible.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1^5

a volatile salt and spirit, by the following process : Take in warm weather, a
considerable quantity of the leaves of any vegetable, stripped or pulled from the
greater stalks ; lay them on a heap, pressing them pretty close together, and
they will soon become very hot, especially in the middle ; and after a few days
resolve into a pappy substance, excepting the outward leaves; then being made
into pellets, and put into a glass-retort, and distilled, they will yield, besides a
great quantity of liquor, much thick black oil, of the consistence of a balsam.
The liquor being separated from the oil, and distilled in a tall glass body, a
volatile spirit sublimes, which, after one, two or three rectifications, becomes
perfectly urinous, and not to be distinguished, by smell or taste, from well-
rectified spirit of hartshorn, blood, urine, or sal ammoniac.

On Stones of a perfect Gold Colour^ found in Animals. By Dr. Johnston of
Pontefract; and communicated by Mr. Lister. N® 101, p. 9.

In the German Philosophic Ephemerides of the year 1672, I meet with these
words of Dr. Wedelius, Obs. 246, page 439, Possideo particulam Calculi vaccini,
instar Auri foliorum fulgidi ; the subject of that observation being an enumera-
tion and the description of several stones found in divers animals, as in dogs,
hogs, stags, and in cows also. I beg Dr. Johnston's pardon for having kept by
me two years an observation of this nature, which he was pleased to communi-
cate to me, and which yet was so surprising, that I had not the assurance to
offer it to you, being in this, as well as in all other matters, relating to the
phasnomena of natural history, very diffident. Being a little more confident
since I read the words of Dr. Wedelius, that the stones sent me by the learned
doctor were such indeed, and not some insect's eggs, as I once really persuaded
myself they were.

In the year 1671, one Thomas Capldge, a butcher of Pomfret, killed an
ox for the shambles ; in which nothing was observed preternatural, till the
bladder being blown by his servant, there was something observed sticking to
the inside with a duskish froth. Keeping the bladder half blown, the butcher's
son, -who first discovered it, knocked with his hand on the side and the bottom
of the bladder, to make it settle to the neck, and by shaking and squeezing
it, got out the froth, and about 200 little globular stones, of several sizes,
the largest being about -^ of an inch diameter; others like pin-heads or
mustard-seed. They were of a duskish yellow colour, and smooth. Some
he broke, and the rest he kept in a paper; which, when dry, were like seed-
pearl, but more smooth, and of a perfect gold-colour, and so continued ever
after. Viewed in a microscope, they appeared very polished, and without any
rugosities : the figure in most was spherical ; in some a little compressed ; the

126 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1674.

colour like burnished gold. I broke one or two of them with some difficulty,
and I found by the microscope, that it was only a thin shell that was so orient
and bright, the inner side of which shell was like unpolished gold : the inmost
substance was like brown sugar-candy to the naked eye, but not so transparent:
the taste was not discernible. In spirit of vitriol they shrunk much and wasted,
but continued their colour. Likewise aqua fortis would corrode and dissolve
them tumultuously.

York, March 12, 1 67 3-4.

On the Origin of Pearls. Bij M. Christ. Sandius. N° 101, p. 11.

The pearl shells in Norway, and elsewhere, breed in fresh water. Their
shells resemble those commonly called muscles, but they are larger. The fish in
them looks like an oyster, and it produces a great cluster of eggs, like those of
crawfish, some white, some black, which latter become white, the outer black
coat being taken off. These eggs, when ripe, are cast out, and then grow,
becoming like those that cast them. But sometimes it happens, that one or
two of those eggs stick fast to the sides of the matrix, and are not voided with
the rest. These are fed by the oyster against its will, and they grow, accord-
ing to the length of time, into pearls of different sizes, and imprint a mark both
in the fish and the shell.

This account M. Sand had from a Dane, called Henry Arnoldi, a person, he
says, of veracity, and who had made the observation himself, at Christiana, in
Normandy. [This Mr. Arnoldi had a very erroneous notion concerning the no-
tion of pearls, which are certainly not the eggs of certain muscles and other
bivalves, in which they are found.]

An Account of some Boohs. N° 101, p. 12.

I. An attempt to prove the Motion of the Earth from Observations, made by
Robert Hook, F. R. S. London, in 4to, 1674.

The ingenious author of this attempt, having considered with himself, that
the grand controversy about the earth remains yet undetermined ; and finding
Ixiere w as no better means left for human industry to decide it but by observing,
whether there be any sensible parallax of the earth's orb among the fixed stars;
did thereupon resolve to employ himself in making some observations concern-
ing so important a point in astronomy. His method, which he gives an account
of, is to observe by the passing of some considerable star near the zenith of
some place, whether such a star does not at one time of the year pass nearer to
the zenith, and at another farther from it.

Accordingly he affirms to have actually made four observations ; by which,
he says, it is manifest, that there is a sensible parallax of the earth's orbit to the

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 12/

Star in the dragon's head, and consequently a confirmation of the Copemican
system against the Ptolemaic and Tychonic. At the end of the explication he
mentions some things, which he looks upon as very remarkable, occurring in
those observations ; one of which' was, that in the day time, the sun shining
very clear, he observed the bright star in the dragon's head to pass by the zenith
as distinctly and clearly as if the sun had been set ; \vhich he esteems to have
been the first time that the stars were seen when the sun shone very bright; that
tradition, of seeing the stars in the day with the naked eye out of a deep well or
mine, being by him judged a mere fiction, a thing he had deemed impossible.

Lastly, he promises that he will explain to the curious a system of the world,
diflJ'ering in many particulars from any yet known, but answering in all things to
the common rules of mechanical motions ; which system he here declares to
depend on three suppositions : ] . That all celestial bodies whatsoever have an
attraction or gravitating power towards their own centres, whereby they attract,
not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them, as we may
observe the earth to do ; but also all other celestial bodies that are within the
sphere of their activity. 2. That all bodies whatsoever, that are put into a
direct and simple motion, will so continue to move forward in a straight line,
till they are by some other more effectual power deflected and bent into a motion
that describes some curve line. 3. That these attractive powers are so much
the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer the body, acted on^
is to their own centres.

II. Medicina Militaris, or Body of Military Medicines experimented, by
Raymundus Mindererus, late chief Physician of the Electoral Court of Bavaria,
8cc. Englished out of High Dutch. London, 8vo. 1(574.

In the present improved state of pharmacy, it would be little satisfactory to
our readers to detail the contents of this obsolete military pharmacopoeia. The
author, however, was a very celebrated physician in his days. He was born at
Augsburg, where he practised, and died in 162 1 . Besides this and other works,
.he wrote a treatise de Pestilentia. That useful diaphoretic medicine, which is
formed by the saturation of the vol. alkali with vinegar, has continued, till
within these few years, to be named after him. In the Pharmacopoeia of the
Lond. Coll. it is now called aqua ammonias acetatae.

III. Ephemeridum Medico-Physicarum Germanias Annus Tertius, &c.
Lips, et Franc. ] 673, in 4to.

For the reason mentioned at the conclusion of the 1 st volume of this abridge-
ment, we omit an enumeration of the contents of this miscellaneous work.

IV. England's Interest and Improvement, consisting in the Increase of the
Store and Trade of this Kingdom, by Samuel Fortrey, Esq. Which Tract was

128 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

first published An. l663; and is again newly addressed to his Majesty. In two
or three sheets it contains, I think, a great treasury.

V. A Discourse of the Fishery, briefly laying open not only the Advantages
and Facility of the undertaking, but likewise the absolute Necessity of it, in
order to the well-being both of the King and People; asserted and vindicated
from all material objections, by Roger L'Estrange, Esq. In one single sheet, he
says, in our opinion, more to the purpose than some would have done in a large
volume.

Considerations of M. Xeeivenhoek, touching the Compression of the Air. N° 102,

p. 21.

In this paper, M. Leewenhoek describes an experiment he made to compress
air, or rather, as he erroneously imagined, to force it through solid glass. He
took a long tube of glass, close at one end, and a plug or piston to fit it very-
tight, that so the air might not escape by the side of it. By pushing this plug
into the tube, full of air, with much force, he was able to force it to within the
100th part of the length of the close. Whence, instead of inferring that the
air was compressed into the 100th part of its space or volume, he concluded that
he had forced nearly all the air, through the pores of the solid glass.

More Microscopical Observations made hy the same Leewenhoek. N° 102, p. 23.

I have observed by the microscope, that blood consists of small round globules,
driven through a crystalline tiumidity or water. I have likewise observed some
of the sweet milk of cows, and find that also to be made up of small transparent
globules, carried in the same manner as in the blood through a clear liquor. I
observed the hair of an elk, and found it wholly to consist of conjoined glo-
bules, which by my microscope appeared so manifestly to me, as if they could be
handled. And therefore having so clearly seen those globules, I assure myself,
that the growth and increment of hair is made by the protrusion and driving on
of globules. This hair of the elk I find to be within much hollower, than that
of men or of other animals. Again, I also observed a nail of my hand, and
found it likewise to be made up of globules, not doubting but that it also grows
from globules protruded. Having formerly spoken of the louse, her sting, &c.
I cannot here omit to say something of what I have seen within that creature. I
have several times put a hungry louse upon my hand, to observe her drawing
blood from thence, and the subsequent motion of her body, which was thus :
the louse having fixed her sting in the skin, and now drawing blood, the blood
passes to the fore part of the head in a fine stream, and then it falls into a larger

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. I'lQ

round place, which I take to be filled with air. This large room being, Jis to
its fore part, filled about half full with blood, then propels its blood backward,
and the air forward again ; and this is continued with great quickness, while the
louse is drawing the blood ; except that at times she stops a little, as if she were
tired, and recollects herself; a motion like that, it seems, which is in the mouth
of a sucking infant : from thence the blood passes in a fine stream into the
midst of her head, that being also a large round place, where it has the same
motion. Hence it passes in a subtile stream to the breast, and thence into a
gut, which goes to the hindmost part of the body, and with a curvity bends a
little upwards again. In the breast and gut the blood is without intermission
moved with great force, and especially in the gut, and that with such strong
beatings downwards, and with such a retrocourse and contraction of the gut,
that a curious eye cannot but admire that motion. In the upper part of the
crooked ascending gut, which is very straight, now and then a little blood
crowds through, which returns not back, and here I presume is a little valve :
the blood, that is thrust through here, stands still, and soon receives another
nature, becoming of a watery colour ; and in this watery liquor there appear
some blackish sandy particles, having a confused motion, which grow in size,
and being grown as large as sand is to our eye, the said particles join themselves
close and firm together, as it were in one mass, and then shoot down to the
anus, carrying with them, in case the louse have much blood in her body, a
little aqueous blood. These excreted particles appear like the excrement of a
silk-worm.

Sir Samuel Mor eland's Undertaking Jbr raising fVater. N° 102, p. 15,

The common and received opinion throughout Europe, has been, that if a
given weight will force up water 20 feet high, there must be more than twice
that weight to force it up 40 feet, and more than thrice that weight to force it
up 6o feet, and so by a geometrical proportion in infinitum. And also, that a
barrel of a pump, 6 inches wide, does not require a pipe, through which the
water must be drawn up, above li inch, or 2 inches, at the most, in diameter.

Sir Samuel Moreland undertakes to demonstrate, 1. That he will force water
6o feet high with treble the weight that shall raise it 20 feet, and so propor-
tionably in infinitum. — 2. That by how much wider the barrel is, in which the
forcer works, than the pipe through which the water is forced up, by so much
is the engine pressed with unnecessary weight.

VOL. II.

130 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1674.

Of Parhelias. By M. Hevelius. N° 102, p. 26.

On Feb. 5, l674, N. S. near Marienburg in Prussia, I saw the sun, in a sky
every where serene enough, being yet some degrees above the horizon, and
shining very bright, yet lancing out very long and reddish rays, 40 or 50 de-
grees toward the zenith (as in fig. 1, pi. 6.) Under the sun towards the horizon,
there hung a somewhat dilute small cloud, beneath which there appeared a
mock sun of the same size, to sense, with the true sun, and under the same
vertical, of a somewhat red colour. . Soon after, the true sun more and more
descending to the horizon, towards the said cloud (as seen in fig 2), the spuri-
ous sun beneath it grew clearer and clearer, so as that the reddish colour in that
apparent solar disk vanished, and put on the genuine solar light, and that the
more, the less the genuine disk of the sun was distant from the false sun : till
at length the upper true sun passed into the lower counterfeit one, and so re-
mained alone; as appears in fig. 3.

This appearance being unusual, I took the freedom of imparting it tin to you,
especially since here the mock sun was not found at the side of the true sun, as
it is wont to be in all parhelias seen by me, but perpendicularly under it ; not
to mention the colour, so different from that which is usual in mock suns ; nor
the great length of the tail, cast up by the genuine sun, and of a far more vivid
and splendid light, than parhelias use to exhibit. Upon this appearance there
soon followed here an exceedingly intense and bitter frost, whereby the whole
bay was frozen up from this town of Dantzic, as far as Hela in the Baltic sea,
which lasted till the 25th of March, and the bay was frozen so hard, that with
great safety people run out into it with sleds and horses, for several of our
miles.

Concerning the famous Kepler's^ Manuscripts , with some Considerations about the
Use of Telescopic Sights in Astronomical Observations. In a Letter from
M. Hevelius. Abridged and Translated from the Latin. N° 102, p. 27.

I perceive that all your countrymen do not agree with me in opinion, on

the subject of sights in astronomical instruments, which I have treated of in the

* John Kepler, one of the best astronomers and mathematicians of the l6th century, was born
in Wirtemburg, in 1571 ; and obtaining a good education at Tubingen, he became professor of
matliematics at Gratz, In 16OO he joined Tycho Brahe, then in Bohemia, as an assistant, by whom
he was introduced to the emperor Rudolphus, who honoured him with the title of his mathematician,
Kepler completed the astronomical tables which Tycho had left unfinished, and published them by the
name of Rudolphine Tables. In l6l3, at the assembly of Ratisbon, he assisted in tlie reformation of
the calendar. After many difficulties and privations, he died in that city in 1630, at 59 years of age.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 131

organographia of my machina coslestis. But although Mr. Hook, and Mr.
Flamsteed, and others, be of a different opinion, yet I have been, and still am
taught by daily experience, that the matter is far otherwise in those large in-
struments, as quadrants, sextants, and octants, especially in azimuth quadrants,
and other quadrants constructed of rulers or bars, which cannot so easily, or in-
deed by any means, be disturbed and inverted (while examining dioptric teles-
copes) as those instruments of 3 or 4 feet constructed with a perpendicular.
The matter chiefly consists in this^ that they can undertake no observation with
their telescopic sights, till they examine and rectify them anew; in which
examination there are various ways, and much room for mistake, however care-
fully it may be done. And indeed I cannot understand how this examination
can be performed, in azimuthal quadrants, octants and sextants, at all times,
with convenience, and without much loss of time.

There are some also I see, among whom is Mr. Flamsteed, who have under-
taken to give judgment on my observations, whatever they may be, before they
have examined or seen them. I am not given to a vain boasting of my own affairs,
nor did ever imagine, that in this attempt at the restitution of the fixed stars,
knowing my own weakness, that I should be perfect in every thing. But this I
am convinced of, that if I had undertaken the business by means of telescopic
sights, I must not only have wasted many years in fruitless examinations, but I
should doubtless have been disappointed of my hopes, and that on various ac-
counts, not necessary here to mention. Hence I congratulate with myself, that
I never could adopt that opinion, but that whatever by God's help I have per-
formed, it has been done after my own manner : but when w^e shall have ob-
servations made in both ways, continued for a series of 20 or 30 years, that is,
as well those that may be made with telescopic sights, as those derived from the
heavens by our plain sights ; the matter will then be brought to a fair trial. In

Kepler was doubtless a genius of the first rank, and possessed a pure and rigid mathematical taste.
He made some splendid discoveries 5 particularly the true laws of the planetary motions j viz. tliat
they move in ellipses about the sun, describing equal areas in equal timesj and that their periods and
distances are all regulated by one general law, the squares of the former being always proportional to
the cubes of the latter : laws however which he discovered, not a priori, by philosophical reasonings,
but by tracing out and comparing their motions as recorded in tlie observations of Tycho : it being
reserved for the immortal Newton to demonstrate the truth and indispensable condition of those laws.
Kepler had some idea of the sun's restraining influence over the planets, which he judged to be an
attraction of a magnetical nature. He was addicted to judicial astrology, and sometimes even fancied
that the earth and sun were animated beings. Kepler's writings and works were very voluminous, and
some of them very learned. Among them, is one on the gauging of wine casks, said to have au
origin whimsical enough, being occasioned by a quarrel he had with an excise officer, whom he ac-
cused of an erroneous estimate in gauging the wine vessels used on occasion of his wedding dinner.

S 2

132 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [anNO]674.

the mean time let every one enjoy his own opinion, and proceed in his own
way.*

On Kepler s Manuscripts.

As to the manuscripts of the celebrated Kepler, which you enquire after, I
purchased them all from his representatives for a certain sum, as well those
that have been published, as those that have never yet been published ; among
which are a great many letters that passed between him and other celebrated
persons. Among these MSS. are found several well deserving to be published,
not only many letters, but some works also, -among which is his Hipparchus,
which, though not quite digested, might be easily put in sufficient order for
that purpose. I have also his MS. chronology. But I do not find a written
account of his life ; though there are numerous facts and traits, from which a
clear account of it might be given. But what I possess of his is contained in
the following catalogue.

Then follows the catalogue, which is curious, but not of any use now, and
too long to be copied here ; especially as the whole of those papers were de-
stroyed at the time of the dreadful fire, which consumed the books and observa-
tory of Hevelius, in the year 1679.

u4n Account of some Books. N° 102, p. 31. -

I. Johannis Schefferi Lapponia, &c. Franc. 1673, in 4to.

Describing the situation of the country, the climate and inhabitants, their
persons, manners, customs, &c.

II. The True English Interest, or an Account of the Chief National Im-
provements ; in some Political Observations, demonstrating an Infallible Ad-
vance of this Nation to infinite Wealth and Greatness, Trade and Populacy,
with Employment and Preferment to all Persons. By Carew Reynel, Esq.
in 8vo, 1674. N

III. England's Improvement Revived, in Husbandry and Trade, by Land
and Sea, &c. By John Smith Gent, in 4 to.

* In the future numbers of these Transactions, we shall have occasion to notice several other
papers on this subject, of the difference between plain and telescopic sights, by Hevelius, Hook and
several other astronomers : of which also a connected account, pretty much at large, may be seen
in the life of Hevelius, in Dr. Hutton's dictionary, vol. I. page 556,

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 133

Obsej-vations and Experiments on Vitriol, by a Fellow of the Royal Society.

N° 103, p. 41.

The observations and experiments set forth in this paper, present nothing in
the least degree interesting to modern chemists and mineralogists.

Some Inquiries and Suggestions concerning Salt for domestic Uses ; and concerning
Sheep ; to preserve and improve the Race. By Dr. John Beal. N° 1 03,
p. 48.

A very useless and uninteresting paper.

An Account of some Books. N° 103, p. 53.

I. About the Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis, some
Considerations occasionally proposed to a Friend, by R. B. E. F. R. S. Lon.
1674, in 4to.

A treatise, by Mr. Boyle, on the importance and nature of the mechanical
philosophy, or that which consists in the affections of matter and motion.

II. On Mr. John Smith's England's Improvement received, in a treatise of
husbandry and trade, by land and sea ; plainly discovering the several ways of
improving the several sorts of waste and barren grounds, and of enriching all
earths, with the natural quality of all lands ; and the several seeds and plants,
which naturally thrive therein, observed, &c. Together with the manner of
planting all sorts of timber trees and underwoods. Experienced in 30 years
practice.

III. Davidis von der Beck, Mindani, Experirnenta et Meditationes circa
Naturalium Rerum Principia, &c. Hamb. 16/4, in 8vo. dedicated to the
Royal Society.

A Continuation of the Discourse concerning Vitriol, begun in N° 103 ; showing,
that Vitriol is usually produced by Sulphur, acting on, and concoagulating with,
a Metal; and then making out, that Alum is likeivise the Result of the said
Sulphur ; as also evincing, that Vitriol, Sulphur and Alum do agree in the Saline
Principle; and lastly declaring the Nature of the Salt in Brimstone, and
whence it is derived. N° 104, p. 66.

The chief object of this paper is to prove what is now well understood, viz.
that the saline principle, or more properly the acid obtained from vitriol, sul-
phur and alum, is one and the same. In the concluding part of these observa-
tions, it is very erroneously conjectured that " the saline principle of sulphur
is identical with common salt.'*

134 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l674,

A71 Extract of a Letter from M. Hevelius, lately written to the Editor, with a Cohy
of a Letter of Dr. Wasmuth, giving a large Account of a New Astronomico-
Chronological Work, now by him preparing. N° 104^ p. 74.

In this tedious advertisement, concerning a book on chronology, composed
by a German author, there is nothing that is worth preserving in this abridge-
ment.

An Account of some Books. N° 104, p. 78*

I. Observations touching the Torricellian Experiment, and the various Solu-
tions of the same, especially touching the Weight and Elasticity of the Air.
Lon. 1674, in 8vo.

A strange and futile attempt of one of the philosophers of the old cast, to
confirm dame nature's abhorrence of a vacuum ; and to arraign the new doc-
trines of Mr. Boyle and others, concerning the weight and spring of the air,
the pressure of fluids on fluids, &c.

II. A Mathematical Compendium, collected out of the Notes and Papers of
Sir Jonas Moore, by Nicholas Stevenson. Lon. 1674, in 12mo.

This volume contains abundance of useful practices in arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, geography, navigation, embattling and quartering of armies, for-
tification, gunnery, gauging and dialling ; explaining also the logarithms with
new indices ; Napier's rods ; making of movements, and the application of pen-
dulums ; with the projection of the sphere for a universal dial, &c.

III. Icones et Descriptiones Rariorum Plantarum Sicilias, Melitae, Galliae, et
Italiae, Auth. Paulo Boccone, Panormitano Siculo, &c. E Theatro Shel-
doniano, 1674.

This industrious and skilful botanist, having spent many years and much
labour in the search after rare plants through Sicily, Italy, and other countries,
thought fit to publish part of them in England, where he was himself not long
since, and very generously left his engraven plates and manuscripts concerning
the same, to be printed, as now they are, in the splendid Sheldonian theatre at
Oxford.

IV. Navigation and Commerce, their Original and Progress : containing a
succinct Account of Traffic in general ; its Benefits and Improvements : of
Discoveries, Wars and Conflicts at Sea, from the Original of Navigation to
this day ; with special regard to the English Nation : their several Voyages and
Expeditions unto the beginning of our late differences with Holland ; in which
his Majesty's Title to the Dominion of the Sea is asserted against the novel and
late Pretenders. By J. Evelyn, Esq. F.R.S. printed 1674, in 8vo.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 135

Extract of M. Hmj gens' s Letter, touching his Thoughts on Mr. Hook's Observations
for proving the Motion of the Earth, noticed in N° 101 of these Tracts.

N° 105, p. go.

The observations of Mr. Hook for finding out the motion of the earth

are very good, and of great consequence ; but they must be continued, to see
whether in the course of one or more years the parallaxes regularly answer to
the annual motion of the earth. To which we also shall contribute our labours;
and the vault in our observatory, being 28 fathoms deep, will in time be very
useful for that purpose. This, if it succeed, will prove an almost entire con-
viction of the anti-copernicans, since there will remain for them nothing but
this ungrounded subterfuge, to say, that the centre of the sphere of the fixed
stars continually changes its place for an annual motion.

Extract of another Letter from Sig. Cassini, relating to the same Subject.
N° 105, p. 90. Translated from the Latin.

Mr. Hook could not, in my opinion, in a better method investigate the
parallaxes of the annual orbit in the fixed stars; nor select for that purpose a
fitter star, on account of its lustre, its proximity to the vertex, and not far
from the pole of the zodiac. Nor will his endeavour be useless, though it
should turn out different from what is required by the parallax. — Indeed our
observations could not hitherto show any thing of this kind distinctly, although
in the meridian altitudes of the fixed stars, at various times of the year, we
should have detected other differences, than those which follow from the pre-
cession of the equinoxes for advancing the stars. — ^We have a pit in the ob-
servatory ready prepared for this purpose, through which the heavens may be
viewed, and useful observations made, &c.

Observations concerning the Comet seen in Brasily March 1668, by P. Valentine
Estancel a Jesuit, and printed at Rome, in the Qth Italian Giornale de Letterati,
Sept. 3\, 1^73. N°105, p. 91.

This is the same Comet as that noticed in N° 35 of these Tracts. There has
not been a phenomenon this great while, of which before this, we have had ob-
serv^ations from all parts of the world. Those from Europe and Asia may be
seen in our 3d and 4th Giornale. Now I have received those of America,
made in the city of St. Salvador, in the southern latitude of 12 deg. A7 min.
Likewise the Jesuit P. Pietro Susarte, rector of Macao, in the East Indies,
writes to have seen the same all along the coast of Bona Speranza. As to the

1^6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTION'S. [aNNO I674.

Brasilian observations, on the 5th of March 1668 (N. S.), at 7 o'clock at night,
Father Estancel began to see this comet a little above the horizon, from west
to east-south-east. At the very beginning it appeared in its greatest bulk, and
with extraordinary brightness, whereas usually they at first appear small, and
then gradually increase. The beginning of its tail was a little under the two
lucid stars, the 15th and l6th, of the Whale's back, over which it then passed,
the whole length being about 23 degrees. The globe or head of it was so small
and thin, that very few could discern it with the naked eye; and the father
needed a telescope to see it well. The 7th of March, the former brightness
was somewhat less, and become so thin, that the eye could easily see the stars
that were behind it. The 8th, there were discovered more fixed stars behind
the Chevelure ; from the 8th, 10th and llth day, until it came to the little
Hare and to Eridanus, certain small stars, being in that celestial river, likewise
appeared through it. The tail was always directly opposite to the sun. As to
the colour of this comet, it was at first very splendid, and its rays v^^ere reflected
from the sea to the shore, where the observers stood. But this brightness lasted
only for three days, after which it considerably decreased. But what seemed
remarkable was, that having lost so much of its light, yet its bulk was not
diminished, but continued rather increasing till the comet disappeared.

Directions for Tanning Leather* according to the New Invention of the Hon.
Charles Howard of Norfolk ; and a Machine for heating and cuttirig the Mate-
rials. N'' 105, p. 93.

Every part of the oak-tree, of what age or growth it may be, and all oaken
copice w^ood, of any age or size, being cut and procured in barking time, will

* In the tanning of leatlier, some improvements were suggested by Dr. Macbride several years
ago, (Phil. Trans. Vol. 68). This process has been further elucidated by modern chymists, and par-
ticularly by Mons. Seguinj and it now appears tliat the changes produced on hides, in the operation
of tanning, are owing to the combination of a peculiar substance, called tannin, (present in oak- bark,
galls, &c.) with tlie glue or gelatine of the skin. It has been supposed by the French chymist
abovementioned, that the gallic acid (also present in those astringent vegetable substances), has con-
siderable influence in promoting this process ; but from the recent experiments of Mr. Davy, (Phil.
Trans, for the present year, 1803), it may be inferred that this is not the case. One object which
Mr, -Davy proposed to himself in his experiments was to ascertain, what indeed had been before
attempted by Mr. Biggin, (Phil. Trans, for 1799)> in the case of the several barks used by tanners,
the relative quantity of tannin in certain astringent vegetable substances j and tlie result shows, that
catechu or terra japonica, contains this pi^inciple in the largest proportion. It would appear, that lib
of catechu is, for the purpose of tanners, equal to 7 or 8 lbs. of oak-bark. As connected with this
subject, we would furtlier refer the reader to Mr. Davy's observations on the preparation of skins for
tanning, inserted in the 15th Number of the Journals of the Royal Institution, for the present year
1803.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 37

tan all sorts of leather as well at least as bark alone. This material being gotten
in its proper season, it must be very well dried in the sun, and more so than
bark ; then housed dry, and kept dry for use ; and when it is to be used, the
greater wood may be shaved small, or cleft fit for the engine described below ;
and the smaller to be bruised and cut small by the same engine : which done,
it must again be dried very well on a kiln, and then ground, as tanners usually
do their bark. Such wood as is to be used presently after getting it, will re-
quire the more drying on the kiln; otherwise it will blacken and spoil all the
leather. Where oak is scarce, thorns may indifferently well supply its place.
Birch prepared and used instead of oak, is very fit for soal-leather. As these
ingredients will tan better than bark alone, and that with far less charge; so
may this invention save the felling of timber when the sap is up ; which causes
the outside of the trees to rot and grow worm-eaten ; whereas, if the trees had
been felled in winter, when the sap was down, they would have been almost all
heart, as they call it, and not so subject to worms. Besides, this invention
will greatly improve the value of underwoods.

The Description of the Engine ahove-mentioned, for Beating and Cutting the

Materials of Tanning.

This machine is represented in pi. 6, fig. 4, 5, 6. It consists of a long square
wooden block, and of some pieces of iron, to be fastened on it and used about
it, viz. an anvil, a hammer, an iron holding the wood to be bruised and cut,
and a knife to cut the same. Oak or elm is accounted best for the said block,
the dimensions whereof are these: AB, in fig. 4, the length of the block, about
4 feet. CD, the breadth thereof, 3 5 or l6 inches. EF, the depth, 8 or 10
inches. The iron pieces are: GHIK, in fig. 4, a square cavity to receive a
plate of iron, serving for an anvil, to beat and bruise the tanning materials on;
which is to be about 4 inches deep, 9 inches broad, and 12 inches long.
LMNO, in fig. 4, the iron for clasping and holding fast the materials, to be
bruised and cut; which must lie across the engine, about the middle of the said
piece of timber ; and it may be about 3 inches broad. P, Q are two hooks at
one end of it; which are turned upwards, and must be hooked into the loops of
the two hinges that are let in and fastened to the side of the engine RS, in such
manner, that this clasping piece may have liberty to be a little raised, for putting
the tanning materials under it. At the other side T, in fig. 5, is a single hook,
likewise turned upward, to hang a weight upon, whilst the stuff is bruising on
the anvil, or cutting by the knife. The button, in fig. 4, serves to take up
this piece by : aaaa, on the other side of the block, in fig. 5, are the places for
the 4 feet to set. this engine upon, which are to be of a convenient height to

VOL. II, T

138 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. £aNNO 1674.

work on it : b the hammer, in fig. 6, for beating and bruising the stuff; which
may be of 6 pounds weight, and have the head about 3 inches square, to work
with both hands ; but to work with one hand, or for a youth to use, let it be
of about 3 pounds weight, and the head about 2 inches square. The surface of
one end of these hammers is best to be smooth ; but that of the other dented,
the better to enter into the stuff for the greater dispatch. They are to be well
steeled at both ends. The handles of these hammers may be about a foot long;
the larger ought to be somewhat longer, cd is the knife in fig. 4, to cut the
bruised stuff; which must be 8 or Q inches broad, and near as much in depth,
made like a tobacco-knife, with a handle to work. This knife must be fastened
to the block at the two opposite sides, that are to be hollowed by two grooves,
efgh in fig. 5, and iklm in fig. 4 ; and this fastening is to be performed by
two pieces of iron, to be fitted in the said grooves, to hold and guide the knife
in working ; the one piece nopq, in fig. 4, is to be fastened to the end of the
knife c by a pin r, passing through three holes ; and this end is to be screwed
into the groove efgk in fig. 5, by a couple of screw-pins ; the other piece
stuxyz in fig. 4, being forked, is to receive the other end of the knife d ; and
the solid square part thereof, iklm, is to be fastened in the groove under it, by
two iron plates uoc, a, under which it must run in the said groove, so as that it
may be slipped out from under it, and laid by, when the machine is not used ;
when also the piece at the other end may be unscrewed and laid up.

The two long squares on one end of the block, in fig. 4, viz. 5, 6, 7, 8, are
two iron-plates to be fastened where the knife, moving in a tit cavity, is to
cut the bruised stuff between them. And of these plates, that which lies next
the end, is to be laid a little lower, the block being there pared accordingly, so
that the stuff may fall off from the end of the machine the quicker, as your left
hand furnishes the knife with the bruised materials, whilst the right hand is
cutting them. Let the hollow place, where the knife cuts, be as near as may
be, so large only, that the knife may easily fall and rise ; and let the block be
hollowed under the cutting hole, and sloped off at that end, for the stuff to fall
off as it is cut by the knife.

A further Consideration on Snails. By Mr. Martin Lister. N*' 105, p. q6.

I herewith send you the first part of our tables of snails, and some queries
upon that subject ; also the lively figure of each shell for illustration, done by
Mr. Lodge. I reserve by me the sea-shells and rock-stones. Again, in that
part of the tables, you have from me, authors are very little concerned ; in the
other, of sea-shells and stone-like shells, there are many authors, which are to
be consulted and taken in, if possibly we can understand them, treating of the

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. JSQ

same species. As for rock-shells in particular, they come in to me in greater
numbers, than I could ever have imagined. And I can assure you, that of near
50 species, I have now by me, found in this county alone, not any one can be
sampled by any sea, fresh- water, or land- snail, that I have or ever saw. So
that you see I have still good reason to doubt of their original, besides many
other arguments that my observations about fossils aftbrd, and which you may
possibly one day see. And that there are the elegant representations of even
bivalve- shells, which never owed their original to any animal, I can demon-
strate ; and think none, that have considered the thing with me, yet have
denied. But whether all be so or no, I choose this method as the most con-
vincing, viz. to give a comparative view.

Some General Queries concerning Land and Fresh Water Snails.

1. Whether there are other shell-snails at land than turbinate ? — 2. Whether
this kind of insect are truly androgyna, and equally participate of both sexes, as
Mr. Ray first observed; and whether both of them which shall be found in the
act of venery, do accordingly spawn, or lay those perfectly round and clear
eggs, so frequently to be met with in the surface of the earth and in the water
too; and the circumstances of those eggs hatching? — 3. Whether the way of
fattening snails, in use amongst the Romans, that is, to make little paved
places encircled with water, be not also very expedient in order to the tme
noting the manner of their generation ? — A. What light the anatomy of this
kind of insect may give to the rest ? — 5. Whether the black spots, observable
in the horns of some snails, are eyes as some authors affirm, and not rather
parts equivalent to the antennas of other insects ; as the flat and exceeding thin
shape, also the branched horns, in other species of snails seem to confirm ? —
6. Whether the coccinea sanies, which some of our water-snails freely and
plentifully yield, be not a saliva, rather than an extravasated blood. The like
may be thought of the juice of the purple-fish, now out of use, since the great
plenty of cochineal ? — 7. In what sort of snails are the stones mentioned by the
ancients, to be found ? And whether they are not to be found (in such as yield
them) at certain times of the year ? And whether they are a cure for a quartan ;
or what other real virtues they have ? — 8. What medicinal virtues snails may

1. Probably not.

2. Each individual appears to be truly androgynous, and it is probable that each deposits the eggs
here mentioned.

5. Uncertain.

8. Common snails have long been considered as restorative in hectic cases, and the larger snail or
pomatia particularly so.

T 2

140 PHILOSOPHICAL TRAXSACTIONS. [anNO iG^A.

have, as restorative to hectic persons; and what credit the Romans may deserve,
counting them, especially the necks of them highly venereal; Celsus also par-
ticularly commending them to be boni succi and stomacho aptas. — 9. Also in-
quire concerning the mechanical uses of the saliva of these animals, as in dying,
whitening of wax, hair, &c.

N. B. The figures are numbered and explained by the tables. The figures of
the naked snails are omitted in this specimen, being not material to that part of
the design, which is, (when the other parts of these tables are finished,) to
give the reader an exact view of animal-shells, as well as of fossils figured
like shells, whereby he will be best able to judge, what to think of their
original.

^ Table of English Snails of the Land, River and Sea Species with their Figures,

See Plate vi. N° 105, p. 99.
Cochleae

Terrestres — testis intectae, turbinatae^
breviorejigura, N° V.

1 . Cochlea cinerea maxima edulis, cujus os operculo gypseo per hyemem tegitvir,

agri Hartfordiensis.

2. Cochlea cinerea et leviter rufescensj striata, operculo testaceo cochleato

donata,

3. Cochlea et colore et fasciis multa varietate ludens.

'i. Cochlea subflava, maculata, atque unica fascia castanei coloris per medium
anfractus insignita.

5. Cochlea vulgaris major, hortensis, maculata et fasciata.
lv7igioreJigura

ad sinistram convolutae, N° IV.

6. Buccinum exiguum subflavura, mucrone obtuso, sive figui^ cylindrica.

7. Buccinum ajterum exiguum in Musco degens, 5 anfractuum, mucrone acuto.

8. Buccinum rupium majusculum, senis orbibus protractum.

9. Buccinum parvum sive trochilus sylvaticus agri Lincolniensis.
ad dextram, N° II.

10. Buccinum puUum, ore compresso, circiter denis spiris fastlgiatum.

11. Buccinuni alterum pellucidum, subflavum, intra senos fere orbes mucro-

natum.
compressce., N° II.

12. Cochlea cinerea, fasciata, Ericetorum.

13. Cochlea altera, puUa, sylvatica, spiris in aciem depressis.
Terrestres nudae, limaces dictae quibusdam, N° III.

14. Limax cinereus maximus, striatus et maculatus, lapillo sive ossiculo insignia

loco Cranii, donatus, locis udis et umbrosis degens.
Fluviatiles turbinatae, cochleae, N° I.

15. Limax cinereus alter, parvus, unicolor, pratensis.

16. Limax ater.

17. Cochlea fasciata, ore ad amussim rotundo.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TILA.NSACTIONS. 141

Buccina, N° V.

1 8. Buccinum flavurn, pellucidum, intra tres spiras terminatum.

19. Buccinum alterum majus, paulo obscurius, pellucidum tamen, 4 Spirarum,
mucrone acutissimo.

20. Buccinum fuscum, 5 Spirarum plenarum, mucrone saepius mutilato ob-

tusoque.
ei. Burcinum subflavum alterum, 5 Spirarum, atque operculo tenui et pellucido,
testaceo tamen cochleatoque donatum.

22. Buccinum longum sex spirarum, in tenue acumen ex amplissm^ basi mucro-
natum.

Compressd testa, coccum fundentes, N° III.

23. Cochlea pvilla, ex utraque parte circa umbilicum cava.

24. Cochlea altera parte plena, et limbo donata, 4 circumvolutionum.

25. Cochlea minor, altera parte plana, sine limbo, 5 circumvolutionum.
Bivalvae, N° II.

26. Musculus, par\Tis, subflams, testa pellucida, pisi magnitudine, palustris.

27. Musculus alter, fluminvun maximus, subviridis.
Marine, &c.

^ Relation ivritten to the Editor from, a Person of great veracity in Germany,
concerning an aged fVoman of 60 Years, giving suck to her Grandchild, &c.
N° 105, p. 100.

I cannot but impart unto you something which lately happened in my family,
which is, that having taken two months ago a nurse for my little girl, since
dead; the boy of that nurse having been on that occasion weaned, did by re-
peated sucking the breasts of his grandmother, a woman of three score years of
age, cause such a commotion in her, that abundance of milk ran to her breasts
for a sufficient nourishment to the said weaned boy, whom also my nurse, his
mother, after she returned home upon the death of my girl, now again gives
suck to, though her breasts had been for some weeks dried up.

So far this relation : which as it can be confirmed by many other like histories,
given by very credible persons, so I shall here second it but with one only, re-
corded by the learned Diemerbroeck in the second book of his Anatome cor-
poris humani, cap. 2, page 408 ; of which book an account is given at the end
of this very tract. The relation is as follows : At Viana, a town very near us,
some years ago, a poor woman, living before the town-gate, and being brought
to bed of a fine boy not long after the death of her husband, and dying pre-
sently after her delivery, left her child behind her in good health ; but leaving
nothing to keep a nurse to give the child suck, the grandmother of the babe
being yet living, a woman of 66 years of age, but very poor also, and not able
to pay a nurse, out of great pity to the poor child, attempted though at that
age, to give it suck herself; in which undertaking she succeeded so well, that

142 1*HIL0S0PHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

having out of her great commiseration put her crying grandchild several times
to her breasts to suck, these breasts did from that old woman's strong imagina-
tion and vehement desire to give suck to this child begin to yield milk, and
continued so to do with that plenty, that it was sufficient to feed the child, so
that it hardly needed any other food; which all that saw it much wondered at,
and which can be attested by many credible citizens of the said town.

As this author alleges this example to fortify his opinion concerning the
cause that impels the chyle to the breasts, which he takes to be the mother's
or nurse's strong imagination and passion to give suck ; so he adds another, for
the same purpose, known to himself, and happening in his own family, which
is ; that a little boy of his having been suckled for a while by his own mother,
the author's wife ; but being fallen very sick, and for great weakness unable to
suck any more for S or 7 weeks, and consequently given over for dead; the
mother, having cast oiFall hopes of giving it any further suck, let her milk dry
up. But the child by great care recovering so far as to be able to suck again, and
being put to a hired nurse, after the mother's breasts were dried up, and this
nurse not using the child well, the mother out of great compassion to her child,
did, about the end of the ninth month from the time of her being brought to bed,
take -the babe to herself again, and, whilst another nurse was sought after, with
a thousand embraces she passionately wished and desired, she might have a full
breast to give suck again herself. A nurse being found the same day, and the
child put to her breasts, the wife of our author found at night, from her strong
imagination and passion (says he), that her breasts, though not stroaked by her,
nor sucked by the child, swelled again, after they had for eight whole months
been quite dried up, and they yielded so much good milk, that, if the new
nurse had not been hired, she could have given plentiful suck to the boy her-
self.

An Account of Tiuo Books. N° 105, p. 101.

I. Tractatus quinque Physico-Medici, de Sale-Nitro et Spiritu Nitro-Aereo;
de Respiratione ; de Respiratione Fcetus in Utero et Ovo; de Motu Musculari
et Spiritibus Animalibus; de Rachitide: auth. Job. Mayow, LL. D. et M.D.
&c. Oxon. e Theat. Sheld. 16/4, inSvo.

The first part of this book treats of nitre, and the nitro-aerial spirit, premising
a history of nitre, concerning which it teaches, what are its component parts ;
how it is produced in the earth ; what the air contributes to its generation, and
what the earth.

Having delivered the constituent principles of nitre in general, the author
treats in particular of the acid spirit of nitre; affirming it to be produced partly

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 143

by the air, and partly by a terrestrial matter. Where he refers the reader to
those Boylean experiments,* which make it out, that the air famishes something
that is necessary to produce flame: which done, he teaclies, that in nitre there
exist igneous particles of the air, which constitute its most active part, and by
which the flame of kindled nitre is produced, without any sulphur, which sub-
stance he will not at all admit to be found in pure nitre, being of opinion, that
the deflagration of nitre is made, not by any sulphureous parts of its own, but
by those fiery aerial parts, put into a very quick motion. Concluding upon the
whole, that the aerial parts of nitre are nothing else but the igneo aerial parti-
cles thereof, requisite to make flame, and that this aerial part of nitre is lodged
in the acid spirit of the same, and not in the fixed salt, which acid spirit, in his
opinion, is compounded of a terrene matter, that is flexile and humid, and of
ethereal corpuscles, that are rigid, dry, active and igneous, proceeding from the
air. And the igneous particles, conceived by him to be common to nitre and
air, he calls nitro-aerial, from whence the spirit of nitre derives its caustic and
corrosive nature, which he calls a potential fire, and from whence he thinks
also that the form of fire chiefly, if not wholly, depends. Now, forasmuch as
this nitro-aerial igneous spirit resides in the acid spirit of nitre, he thence infers,
that that nitro-aerial spirit is of a nitro-saline nature, obtaining rather the
nature of an acid than fixed salt.

These things being thus by our author pre-supposed, he descends to the expli-
cation of the nature of fire, and makes its form and essence principally to depend
on the said nitro-aerial spirit put into motion; rejecting the opinion of those,
that will have fire producible by the subtile and briskly moved parts of any mat-
ter, and declaring on this occasion his dissent from those philosophers, that
deduce all efl^scts of nature from the same uniform matter, and the various mo-
difications thereof; -}- which he thinks inconsistent with the phaenomena of fire,
not at all, in his opinion, producible but by a certain determinate kind of parti-
cles, such as he calls nitro-aerial. This he endeavours to prove by divers expe-
riments.

Having done with the aerial part of the spirit of nitre, he proceeds to its ter-

* See Mr. Boyle's excellent Tracts, printed anno l672, in London, the first of which contains
new experiments touching the relation between flame und air, and about explosions; where among
many other things, is evinced the efficacy of the air in the production of flame, even without any
actually flaming or burning body: and where also the curious reader will meet with a fiill and very
instructive account of those experiments, which this author here glances at. — Note by Mr, Olden-
burg.

-)• Compare herewith the considerations of the Hon. Mr. R. Boyle, about the excellency and
grounds of the mechanical hypotliesis. — Note by Mr. Oldenburg.

144 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

restrial and acid part, and labours to show, how the spirit of nitre is produced in
the earth. For the better understanding whereof, he premises something con-
cerning the spirit of sulphur and other acid liquors ; teaching, that that spirit
does not exist in sulphur before deflagration or the operation of the fire; and
affirming, that, as the nitro-aerial spirit of the fire, by a very brisk motion and
effervescence, contending with and acting upon the salino-sulphureous particles,
does in a very short time comminute and render fluid the saline parts included
in the sulphureous; so the same spirit, boiling up by a more remiss motion
with the same salino-sulphureous parts, does in a longer time turn the saline
parts into an acid liquor. Where he takes occasion to discourse, how liquors in
general become acid by the operation of the nitro-aerial spirit; as also, wherein
fermentation consists, viz. in the effervescence of the nitro-aerial particles
with the salino-sulphureous ones of the liquor.

According to this author, sal-nitre is made up of a threefold salt; whereof
one, the most active, deduces its origin from the air, and is of an ethereal and
igneous nature; and this by its architectonical power forms to itself out of a
terrestrial matter a saline vehicle, which, together with the igneous salt residing
in it, constitutes the spirit of nitre ; which as soon as it is generated, falls to
working upon the fixed salts of the earth brought to due maturity, and together
with them makes up the common nitre. From this nitro-aerial spirit he derives
all fermentations tending both to the production and dissolution of things.
From the same he deduces rigidity, and particularly congelation, and the ex-
pansion made therein; where he examines the explication given by Descartes
of the rarefaction of congealed water. And as he makes rigidity the eff^ect of
that spirit, so he would have the restitution of rigid and infected bodies^ in which
consists springiness, to result from the same. And acknowledging, from the
many Boylean experiments, * that the air is endowed with a considerable spring,
he attempts to give an account, whence that elastic power arises ; taking it for
granted, that the air contains store of those nitro-aerial particles, that to him are
absolutely necessary to make fire, of which the air being exhausted by deflagra-
tion, the fire must needs be extinguished; and assuming thereupon, that the
elasticity of the air proceeds from such aerial particles as maintain flame; having
found .by experiments, that air deprived of those nitro-aerial parts loses its
«pringy virtue; which virtue he also affirms to be lessened by the respiration of
animals, who, in his opinion, do exhaust out of the air certain vital, and those

* To be met with in Mr. Boyle's physico-mecbanical experiraents of the year 1660, at Oxford,
and the continuation of the year 1669, at Oxford, where the reader may find a full information of what
our author here declares. — Note by Mr. Oldenburg.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 14f»

elastic particles, insomuch that he doubts not but that something aerial abso-
lutely necessary to life, passes into the blood of animals by means of their respi-
ration; whose necessity therefore he cannot acknowledge to arise from thence
only, that thereby and by the motion of the lungs the mass of blood may be
comminuted, as some have asserted : concluding at last, that fire and life are
maintained by the same aerial parts ; and giving a reason, why an animal is able
to live in a receiver awhile after a candle is extinguished, which is, that, in his
opinion, there is required a greater quantity of aerial particles to the burning
of a candle, than the maintaining of life. Whence yet he would by no means
have it inferred, that though flame and life are maintained by the same parti-
cles, therefore the mass of blood is kindled, as some teach.

He imagines that the nitro-aerial particles, from which the spring of the
air proceeds, are lodged in the very parts of the air, and carried away from it
by the burning of a candle, or the respiration of animals ; so that those nitro-
aerial and elastic parts that come to fail are not the air itself, but the subtilest
and the most active part thereof, which being expelled by burning or respiration,
the air becomes effete, and destitute of its spring. Moreover he considers,
how the air, when deprived of its nitro-aerial parts, is again supplied with
them I *

He afterwards proceeds to explain in what manner the nitro-aerial spirit is
breathed in by animals ; and how it comes to lose in them its elastic power;
and of what use it is being inspired; where he teaches that those nitro-aerial
parts are in animals as well as in vegetables the principal instrument of life and
motion; and that the fermentation both of the blood and the vegetable juice
depends on the same.

He then inquires, whether air may be generated de novo, and, on this occa-
sion, recites an experiment, which he says is like to one formerly made by Mr.
Boyle, tending to prove the affirmative of the question. Concerning which,
this author is of opinion, that though the aura, produced by that experiment,
and by others here recited, be endowed with a no less spring than the air we
breathe in ; yet it is no true air, such as contains vital and igneous parts ; for as
much as that aura, wherein he found an animal and a lighted candle to expire,
was, he says, endowed with a spring as well as an unviolated air, but destitute of
nitro-aerial and vital parts. Mean time, he suggests an experiment to discover,
whether the pretended new generated air be true air indeed and fit to maintain

* In the writings of this ingenious philosopher, we may easily trace, (as we have already hinted at
p. 295, of the 1st vol. of our abridgement,) the outlines of the modern chemical theories concerning
acidification, conibustion, and respiration. Unfortunately for science, Mayow died at a very early
age. By nitro-aerial spirit, he meant the same principle which the chemists of these days have deno-
minated oxygen.

VOL. II. U

146 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

any life: and by that experiment determines this matter in the negative, though
he denies not that there is a great affinity betwixt them.

After this, he spends a chapter in discussing how fire is kindled and propa-
gated, and in what manner all fermentations are made, namely, by the pulsa-
tion of the Cartesian materia subtilis, whereby as by a substance that constantly
moves, he says, the ignited parts are put into a vehement motion. And here he
declares, that fire seems to him to be nothing else than a very great fermenta-
tion of nitro-ae rial and sulphureous parts; and concludes, that as the most vehe-
ment motion of the igneous particles proceeds from thence, that the sulphu-
reous ones pass into the particles of the nitre or air, and there hitting upon the
briskly agitated materia subtilis, are by the impulse of the same, together with
the nitro-aerial parts, found in the said substances, by an elastic impetus struck
out; so all the more remiss fermentations of natural things are caused hence,
that the said nitro-aerial particles, penetrating the salino- sulphureous mass, do
enter into the body of the subtile matter, by which, being put in a great agita-
tion, the said nitro-aerial parts are protruded together with the sulphureous
ones ; so that the effervescence of fire seems to him to differ from the more
remiss intestine motions, by which vegetables are generated or dissolved, only
in this; that in fire the nitro-aerial particles being closely joined with the fixed
salt or parts of the air, are by the impulse of the sulphureous parts and the sub-
tile matter carried away with violence, and put into a very swift agitation;
whereas in other fermentations, the sulphureous parts not being lodged so fast
in the embraces of the fixed salt, are by the pulsation of the nitro-aerial parts
and of the materia subtilis moved with more remissness.

Next he discourses of light and colours, embracing the doctrine of Descartes,
making light to consist in a pulse, which by reason of the continuity of the lu-
minous medium is suddenly transmitted to the greater distance ; but this impulse
our author would have made by his nitro-aerial particles; as he is of opinion,
that colours are produced not from a light reflected, but from a peculiar impulse
of the medium, altogether different from that of light; concerning which and
the manner of which, the discourse itself may likewise be perused.

To this he subjoins a chapter about lightning, which he denies to pro-
ceed from kindled exhalations; and having espoused the Cartesian opinion
of the production of thunder from the impetuous fall of the upper
condensed and conglaciated clouds upon the lower; he thence infers, that
lightning is made by his nitro-aerial particles struck out of the air, and by
their vehement igneous motion causing a slight and momentaneous flash
spreading itself over the whole hemisphere. Where he adds his thoughts about
the force of lightning, and its wonderful effects in melting swords without

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 47

hurting their scabbards, in killing animals, in occasioning very tempestuous
winds, &c.

So much concerning the first treatise. As to the other four, we shall not say
much of the two former, viz. of respiration and the rickets, but hasten to make
some mention of the two remaining parts, treating of the respiration of a foetus
in the womb and the egg, and of muscular motion and the animal spirits.

Touching the former of these, our author considering with himself, how a
foetus can live in the womb without the access of air, and finding the offices
hitherto assigned to the umbilical arteries to be ill grounded, scruples not to
affirm with the learned Everard, that the said arteries are formed chiefly, if not
only, for the use of respiration, declaring, that the blood of the embryo, being
conveyed through the umbilical arteries to the placenta uteri, carries to the
foetus not only the nutritious juice, but also with it a quantity of the nitro-aerial
particles, whereby the blood of the foetus, by its circulation through the umbi-
lical vessels, is impregnated just as it is in the vessels of the lungs: whence he
would not have that placenta called any more the liver, but the lungs of the
womb. And this supplement for respiration he extends to the chicken in
an egg, asserting, that the same does, no otherwise than a child in the womb,
breathe by the said arteries ; esteeming, that the primogenial liquors of the egg,
furnished with a pure aerial substance, being incessantly conveyed through the
umbilical vessels to the chick, perform to the same the office not only of nutri-
tion, but of respiration also. To' this he adds, that even that gentle warmth,
excited in the egg by incubation, may also contribute something, there to supply
the defect of respiration ; forasmuch as he supposes to have proved in his treatise
of respiration in general, that the Aitro-aerial particles, by the blood's fermenta-
tion struck out of the parts of the air, serve animals for respiration; and that,
as all heat proceeds, in his opinion, from such nitro-aerial particles put into
motion ; so in this case, the heat given by the incubating bird, and received and
detained in the albumen, is thence collected by the many small suckers of the
umbilical vessels, and so conveyed to the chicken. Upon which ground he
undertakes to solve that difficult query, viz. why a foetus after it is born, and
yet closed up in its membranes, may yet live for some hours; whereas if, being
divested of those skins, it have once taken air into its lungs, it cannot live a
moment after without it? which he answers thus; that a foetus born, and yet
wrapped close within the membranes, is in a like state, and breathes much after
the same manner, as a chick included in an egg. But if, those membranes
being pulled away from the foetus, it do, for breathing, with labour contract the
muscles of the chest and the midriff, it spends in that muscular labour much
more of those nitro-aerial parts than before ; whence there is a greater necessity

u 2

148 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

for the foetus to breathe in the open air, there being now nothing to compensate
the defect of that respiration.

Let us pass to the last, which is of muscular motion and animal spirits. It is
undoubted, that the motion of animals is made by the contraction of the mus-
cles ; but it is controverted in what manner that contraction is made. The most
received opinion is, that the fibres of the muscles are inflated by some elastic
matter, swelling them as to their breadth, but contracting them as to their
length ; though the learned Steno in his Myology thinks it needless to take in
a springy matter for the contraction of the muscles ; forasmuch as he judges it
may be effected by the sole change of their figure. Concerning which our
author considers that it appears not ; 1 . How that motion, requisite to make a
change in the figure, can be produced without the accession of some new
matter, 2. How it comes to pass, if no new matter enters the muscle, that in
its contraction it is so sensibly hard and tense. And whereas anatomists have
hitherto taught, that the carneous fibres chiefly make the contraction in mus-
cles, our author thinks it more probable, that the fibrillae, transversely inserted
into the greater fibres, perform the chief part in that contraction, by reason as
well of their position as their size and number. And as to the cause of this
contraction in these fibrillae, he thinks, that besides the animal spirits, there are
also required to this motion some of the salino-sulphureous parts of the blood ;
and that those animal spirits, that contribute to the animal motion, consist of
those nitro-aerial parts, which he asserts to be transmitted into the blood by
inspiration. And both these parts he judges necessary to this muscular motion,
because he understands not how that animal motion can be performed without
different particles mixed together and briskly moved; in regard that, in his opi-
nion, it cannot be effected by springiness and weight, which do the work in
automatons, since their impetus will soon cease: whence he concludes, that
the muscular contraction is performed by the effervescence of the salino-sulphu-
reous and nitro-aerial particles.

II. Anatome Corporis Humani, conscripta ab Isbrando de Diemerbroeck,*
Med. et Anatomes Professore, Ultrajecti, l(371,in4to.

* Isbrand van Diemerbroeck was a celebrated Dutch physician of the I7th century. He practised
for several years at Nimeguen, and wrote an account of the dreadful plague, which raged there in
1635, 1636, and 1637. He afterwards removed to Utrecht, where he was appointed to the profes-
sorship of physic. He died in l674, aged 65. Besides the abovementioned anatomical work, several
other treatises were written by this author j viz. De Variolis et Morbillis ; Obsen'at. et Curationes
Medicaej Disputationes Practicae, &c.; but his principal work is that De Peste, first published in l6i6,
4to. and reprinted^ some years after his death, with his otlier writings, under the title of Opera Omnia,
Utrecht, l685 folio. During the raging of the abovementioned pestilence, Diemerbroeck attended

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 149

There are now extant systematic treatises of anatomy, so much more complete
than this, (which however possesses considerable merit, and was among the best
at the time of its publication,) that we deem an account of it altogether un-
necessary.

Microscopical Observations concerning Blood, Milk, Bones, the Brain, Spittle, and
Cuticula, &c. By M. Leuenhoek. N° 106, p. 121.

The small red globules in the blood, formerly spoken of in N° 1024, are
heavier than the crystalline liquor in which they are carried; because, soon after
the blood is let out of the veins, those globules gradually subside towards the
bottom; and consisting of soft fluid corpuscles, many of which lie on one
another, they unite close together, by which conjunction the blood under its
surface alters its colour, and becomes dark, red, or blackish.

The red globules of the blood I reckon to be 25,000 times smaller than a
grain of sand ; which perhaps will to many seem incredible : but the matter
being about figured bodies, it is known that two globes being given, the axis
of one whereof is 1, and that of the other 20, the proportion between their
magnitudes is as 1 to 8000; spheres being in a triplicate proportion to their
diameters. The same red globules, when they are single, and stick within to
the sides of very slender glass tubes, will appear white and colourless.

I have several times endeavoured to observe the parts of a bone ; and at first
I imagined I saw on the surface of the shinbone of a cow, several small veins,
but I have not found it since in any other bone. I thought likewise, I saw then
also, that the bone consisted of united globules. Afterwards I viewed the shin-
bone of a calf, in which I found several little holes, passing from without in-
wards; and I then imagined that this bone had divers small pipes going long-"
wise ; but 1 have since observed the tooth of a cow, and found it made up of

vast numbers of the infected, many of whose cases he has related. Among other prophylactic mea-
sures to which he resorted, he particularly mentions the fumigation of the bed-chambers and apart-
ments with the acid vapours produced by the burning of brimstone ; directing those employed in this
business, to withdraw from such apartments for an hour or two, until the fumigating process should be
finished j lest their lungs should be injured by the irritating action of the sulphureous vapour. As
he escaped infection himself, although he was constantly exposed to it in visiting the sick, all f>ersons
were eager to know what precautions he observed on this occasion. Accordingly, at the end of tlie
2d book, he gives a circumstantial account of his mode of living, while this contagion lasted ; whence
it appears that he used a generous, but not intemperate diet ; that he banished all fear, and resisted
as much as possible all depression of spirits; tliat he occasionally held in his mouth, and chewed
cardamon seeds, elecampane-root, &c. ; that he fortified his stomach with bitters and aromatics ; and
lastly, that he indulged freely in die smoking of tobacco; placing upon this measure more reliance
as a preservative, tlian is warranted by tlie experience of succeeding observers.

150 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

transparent globules, which I can see very perfectly. The same I have observed
in ivory or elephants' teeth. And I have no doubt but that all white bones do
consist of transparent globules. I am also of opinion, that all things which ap-
pear white to our eyes, are made up of nothing but transparent particles lying
one upon another, such as snow, white paper, linen, white stones, white wood,
scum, beaten glass, beaten rosin, sugar, salt, &c.

The brains of a cow being viewed, I found the white substance of it to be made
up also of very fine globules. As to the marrow of the back bone, I found that
also to consist of very subtile globules. Having divers times observed the flesh
of a cow, I found it consist of very slender filaments, lying by each other, as if
woven into a film. I have also viewed several filaments which were beset with
globules. These I judged to be blood, and that, pricking our body with a pin
without hitting a vein, the bloody globules issued from between these filaments;
but this I leave to further consideration. Mean time I have with a pin's point
severed these filaments from one another, and found the single ones so fine,
that any of them seemed to me 25 times thinner and finer than a hair. Having
exposed them to my microscope, I saw to my wonder, that they were made up
of very small conjoined globules, which in smallness seemed to surpass all the
rest.

The cuticula, or uppermost skin of our body, consists of round parts or small
scales. And I fancy that the continual growth of this cuticula is made in this
manner; that the humidity issues forth from between all those round particles or
scales lying close upon each another, and not through pores as many have taught.
Like a close and well twisted cable, upon which pouring continually some water,
this water will pass through the whole cable, and oose out at the end ; not
passing through any pores, but making its way about and between the filaments
of the cable, and so getting out beneath. And the coarser or more consistent
matter cleaves to the body, and so makes the uppermost skin; which thus
grows on from beneath, and is worn off from above: and the more transparent
these particles are, the whiter is our skin ; which yet are but our conjectures
and suspicions. And the like manner of growing I have formerly said to take
place in plants, only with this difference, that when the superficies of a moist
globule, which is driven out of the plant, is become somewhat stiff, the moisture
is then propelled out of the upper end of the plant, and that by a continual
succession. Which kind of progress of growing I apprehend may in some man-
ner be seen in the pith of wood, in cork, in the pith of membranes, as also in
the white of a quill.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 151

Other Observations made by Mr. Leuenhoek, about Sweat, Fatj and Tears.

N° IJO, p. 128.

I have often viewed the sweat of men and horses, and found it consisted
of a crystalline moisture, in which I saw many transparent globules moving
with some odd larger parts, which I judged to be scalings off from the cuti-
cula.

I formerly acquainted you, that I imagined I had seen hair as made up of
united globules, and to have also observed elephants' hair consist of the like.
I cannot omit now to communicate, that since then I have seen such globules,
not only in human hair and horse hair, but also frequently in the wool of
sheep; and further, that the root of the hair pulled out of the eye-brows,
consists altogether of the like globules. Having pulled out of an elephant's
tail a black hair, and cut transversely from it a thin scale, I exposed it to my
microscope, which represented in the thick of that hair about a hundred
little specks somewhat whitish, and in each speck a black point, and in some
few of those black points a little hole; and this hair consisted of united glo-
bules, which yet I thought I should have found larger in this thick hair of so
bulky a beast than indeed they were.

I lately viewed some blood in which there was much of the crystalline
liquor ; and going into the open air in high wind, I saw to my great delight,
continually, and without any other motion but that of the wind, the red glo-
bules blown about, and as if each globule had yet a second motion, and that
about its axis.

I have heretofore viewed the fat of sheep and cows, and showed to se'/eral
of the curious, that it is made up of globules joined together, which appeared
to my eye as large as ordinary hail-stones. And I have lately observed, that
each globule of fat consists of more than a thousand small globules. Yet I
am apt to believe, that those that have not seen the globules in blood, hair,
bone, &c. will not satisfy themselves about seeing them in fat, because of their
extraordinary minuteness.

Having viewed the tears of two infants, I found therein very few round
globules, but other odd and misshapen particles of divers forms; some of which
seemed to consist of united globules.

152 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1674.

j4n Account of a remarkable Case of a Dropsy mistaken for Pregnancy in a young
Woman \ in which the Observations made on the same Case by Dr. Tulpius*
are considerably enlarged. N° 110, p. 131.

Some years since, there came to Dr. D. in Holland, a young woman of about
17 years of age, unmarried, and reputed a maid, of a florid countenance, and
strong body, having a good stomach, periodice menstruata, and wanting none
of other due evacuations ; not troubled witli head-ach nor sleepiness, nor dif-
ficulty of breathing, nor drought, nor any of the symptoms incident to hydro-
pical persons. This young woman having her belly swollen to excess in three
months time, was much suspected by him of incontinence; which yet with
many imprecations she denied, though in vain : the physician disbelieving her
assertions, and particularly that she had her periodical discharges, because she
looked so well, nor had any signs of an hydropical distemper upon her, except
the tumor of her belly, which being felt, afforded some considerable signs to
dispossess the physician of the opinion he had of this person ; seeing it was not
a prominent nor roundish tumor, nor any such as is usual in women with child ;
besides her urine was not such as is usual to childbearing women: yet there ap-
pearing no symptoms of a dropsy, the physician sent her away, without giving
or prescribing her any physic. Yet she returned soon after, im.portuning him
to give her his advice against the dropsy. He consulting with other physicians
about it, found them as distracted between both, as he himself was. Yet some
of them, inclining rather to the opinion of a dropsy, with appropriate medicines
made her void abundance of water, yet without reducing her belly. In 6 months,
after consulting other doctors without effect, her body was dried and bloodless,
her breath short, her temples fallen in, her nose sharp, her eyes hollow, her

* Nicolas Tulpius was born at Amsterdam in 1593, and was educated at Leyden, After taking
his degree of M. D. in that university, he returned to his native city, and soon got into first-rate
practice there. Being a man of great integrity, sound judgment, and extensive inforaaation, not only
in matters appertaining to his profession, but in others also not immediately connected therewith, he
was elected a member of the senate and burgomaster. In this capacity he rendered tlie most essential
services to his country; for, in l672, when the victorious army of Lewis XIV. had penetrated witli-
in 9 miles of Amsterdam, and the inhabitants, seized with a panic, were preparing to evacuate the
place, he boldly stepped forth, although at the advanced age of 79, and in a firm and energetic
harangue exhorted his countrymen to stand fast and defend their capital to the utmost extremity.
This address had the desired effect. The soldiers and citizejis returned to their posts 3 the garrison
was well served ; the guardships which lay in the harbour were quickly manned; tlie sluices were
opened; Amsterdam was saved — ^This> venerable magistrate and excellent physician died in l674,
aged 81. His Observationes Medicae rank among the best practical works on physic, of the I7th
century.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 153

skin wan and ill-favoured, her pulse creeping, her appetite prostrate, her tongue
dry, her voice weak, her evacuations sparing, &c. ; but refusing to undergo
the operation of tapping, she was left to herself, and died three months after.
Her body being opened, there soon appeared a great lake of water ; whence at
first it seemed to be a common ascites, a tumor of waters stagnating in the
abdomen. Then the liver being looked after, it was no where seen. Next tiie
other viscera being sought for, viz. the mesentery, pancreas, spleen, and kid-
neys, none of them appeared, to the astonishment of all that were present, who
searching further, and meeting with the peritonaeum, found it to be turned into
a bag, by a separation made of its interior membrane from its exterior, and so
inclosing within it the whole bulk of that restagnant water, that not a drop of
it could pass into the abdomen. And the compass of this bag formed by the
two membranes, reached from the pubes to the diaphragm, and from the left
region of the loins to the right ; so that the nervous body of the peritonaeum,
was by little and little expanded, as the capacity of the womb in gravidation is
still more and more enlarged, which yet had become very thick, being thicker
and closer than any ox's hide, whereas naturally it is as thin as a silken, web.
This bag of the peritonaeum being removed, the viscera came to view, which
were not gravelly, nor tartareous, nor chalky, as they often are in hydropical
bodies, but only decayed and colourless : which decay, by the timely use of an
incision, might have been prevented.

Account of Three Books, N° 106, p. 134.

I. De Secretione Animali Cogitata, Auth. Guil. Cole, M. D. Oxon. 1674,
in 12mo.

In this treatise a principal share in the business of secretion is erroneously at-
tributed to fermentation.

II. Erasmi Bartholini ^electa Geometrica, Hauniae, An. 1674, in 4to.
These Selecta Geometrica are : — First, a general method to come to an

equation, by reducing all sorts of questions to general heads: where the learned
author reduces to one head, for instance, all problems of proportionals, both
arithmetical, geometrical, and harmonical ; but treating here only of the two
latter, and more largely of the last of all. — The second is his dioristice ; in
which, having observed how far short the ancient geometricians came of a
general art of determining problems, he says he has endeavoured to supply that
defect, by delivering here two general rules for determining the limits of
equations, so as to know how many roots are possible : in the first of which he
follows the rule of that famous geometrician Fermat : in the second he agrees

VOL. II. X

154 ^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

with the method of the learned Hudden, contained in the annexa to the first
part of Descartes's geometry; which seems indeed to be a corollary of Slusius's
general method of tangents, published in N° 90 of these tracts. — The third is
an Auctarium Trigonometriae, to solve and demonstrate triangles, both rectilinear
and spherical.

III. Logica, sive Ars Cogitandi, e Tertia apud Gallos Editione recognita et
aucta, in Latinum versa. Lond, 1674, in 8vo.

This logic being now turned into good Latin, seems worthy to be recom-
mended to all young students ; as, omitting what is useless and pedantic, and
comprehending what is indeed sober, and necessary to direct our reason in all
sorts of ingenious and useful sciences.

An Observation, made hy the Learned Dr. Sampson, of a Man Anatomized,
ivhose Bowels were found inverted. N° 107, p. 146.

Mr. J. D. formerly a minister in Yorkshire, was troubled with a cough, and
other complaints; for relief against which he took a journey to London, for the
most part on foot : he lived not above a fortnight after he came up. In his
sickness he was much addicted to drink brandy, which hastened his death. I
opened his body with the assistance of two other physicians.

We observed his limbs to be much macerated ; his belly was swelled with
some inequality, especially in the tract of the right muscles : a considerable
quantity of water was taken out of it ; his guts inflamed, and extended with
wind; his gall very viscid; his lungs inflamed, and beset with divers glandules.
But that which most of all surprised us, was the inverted order of his bowels :
his liver, which was very large, lay in the left hypochondre, and his spleen in
the right; the cone of his heart was on the right side, and accordingly, the
larger and thinner ventricle was found on the left; and the thick one, which
in others is on the left side, was in him on the right. The great artery de-
scended on the right side, and the vena cava ascended by his liver on the left.
The oesophagus descended to the first orifice of the stomach on the right side,
which made the pylorus and entrance of the pancreas be on the left, and the
first flexure of the small guts to be towards the right : so that the beginning of
the colon with its appendicula, lay at the left os ilion, and the flexura sigmoidaea
towards the right. Other things, that necessarily followed this site, need not
be mentioned.

It was forgot to inquire, on which side the lacteous thoracic duct ascended,
or where it ended ; or on which side the recurrent nerves took their places of
returning about the trunks of the great artery and the axillary; nor had we time
to do it. — ^This person was never observed in his life time to have any distemper.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 155

or usage, which might discover this inverted situation of his bowels, nor had
this contraposition any evident influence upon his diseases and death. He was
about thirty years of age, a married man, had several children, was of a middle
stature, healthful till toward the latter end of his time : had no prominency on
his left side more than the other; was not left-handed, nor had any weakness
on his left side. The observer adds, that some such, though none so com-
plete, instances of inverted bowels, are mentioned by Bartholin, in his second
century of observations, n. 29; and that Schenke mentions two others, 1. 3,
obs. 9, dejecore; one found by Gemma, another by Aquapendente.

Account of the tivo Sorts of the Helmontian Laudanum, communicated to the
Editor hy the Hon. Robert Boyle \ with the Way of Baron F. M. Van Helmont,*
of preparing his Laudanum. N° 107, p. 147.

As for the Helmontian laudanum, you may use your own liberty in suspect-
ing the receipts that go about of it. For the name itself seems ambiguous to

* John Baptist van Helmont was bom of a good family, at Brassels, in 1577- After finishing his
education at Louvain, he travelled into various paits of tlie Continent, and on his return, settled at
VUvorde, where he dedicated a great portion of his time to the prosecution of chemical experiments,
and to the preparation of elixirs and other chemical remedies, by means of which he is said to have
performed the most astonishing cures, and to have attained to a degree of celebrity, as a practical
physician, almost unexampled. He attacked and refuted the doctrines of Aristotle and Galen, at
that time taught and revered in most of the universities on the Continent j and maintained, in their
stead, the hypotheses of the ancient pneumatics, with which he intermixed his own paradoxical
opinions expressed in a barbarous jargon, invented by himself. He died in l644, aged 67 ; although
he had asserted in several of his writings, that he had discovered the means of prolonging life, far
beyond what is generally believed to be its natural term. In the true spirit of empiricism, he ex-
tolled his Alkahest as a remedy for all diseases ; the origin of which he referred to the exasperation
and disturbance of his supposed Ardmus, an essence or being which he imagined to be distinct from
body and mind, &c. &c.

In these days, when a clearer insight into the constitution of living bodies, enables us to form a
better estimate of the powers of those agencies which go under the name of remedies. Van Helmont
claims our attention rather as a chemist than as a physician. Paracelsus had taken some notice of that
aeriform fluid, which is extricated from fermenting liquors, and which he called spiritus sylvestris.
He thought, however, that it was similar to atmospheric air. Van Helmont examined it more
closely, and found that it was ver}' different from common air, possessing deleterious qualities. To
this and otlier aeriform fluids he gave the name of gas, a name adopted by modem chemists. In liis
complexionum atque mixtionum elementalium Figmentum, and in his Tractatus de Flatibus, he has
enumerated various species of gases, insomuch that one of tlie greatest chemists of tlie last century
confesses, that in reading the works of this author, he has found, with astonishment, an infinite
number of facts, which philosophers are accustomed to consider as more modern; and that on the
subject of i>ermanently elastic fluids. Van Helmont has mentioned almost every thing with which
we are now more thoroughly acquainted. The Elzevir edition of the collected works of this autlior,
is in one vol. 4to. The editions printed at Venice, Lyons, &:c. are in folio. A catalogue of his

X 2

156 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. . [aNNO 1674.

me, who am well informed that there are two sorts of the Helmontian lauda-
num ; the one used by the elder Helmont, the other by his son. The former
was, as a great secret, communicated to me by an expert chemist, sent by a
German Prince to compliment Johannes Baptista Van Helmont, some of whose
manuscripts (one of which perished in the fire of London,) he procured, to-
gether with a way of making his laudanum; which, having received from him
,14 or 15 years ago, I carefully prepared, and thought my labour so well recom-
pensed by the extraordinary operations it had, not so much in my hands, as
those of learned physicians and others, to whom I presented portions of it,
that I should have thought the chemist a benefactor to physic, if he would
have made public, or permitted me to publish the way of making so successful a
medicine. And though the access to my laboratory was so free to ingenious
men, who knew such a medicine to be preparing there, that some of them might
easily suppose themselves masters of the secret; yet my justice to the commu-
nicator, who made a great and deserved benefit of the laudanum, made me take
that care to conceal some circumstances, that men may easily be much more
confident than sure that they have the right way of making the medicine.
Which, because I durst not communicate, meeting two years ago with Baron
Van Helmont, son to the famous Johannes Baptista, I obtained from him, by
word of mouth, some directions about the laudanum he uses; which, though
he confessed, and I soon perceived, to be different from his father's, yet he
seemed to think it not inferior, and more easily made. But he having, for a
certain reason, imparted to me his process only by word of mouth; lest it should
slip out of my memory, I soon after committed it to writing, as the particulars
I gathered from him occurred to me; and at the next season caused the
medicine to be prepared in my laboratory, where the progress was often watched
in my absence by a very learned and industrious London doctor j who having at
my. request made many trials with it, and some in cases where other laudanums
had been found unavailable, both uses it, and commends it more than I could
expect from so wary and judicious a man. This medicine being somewhat more
cheap and easy to be made than the elder Helmont's, the experience of its effi-
cacy made me desire of the younger a permission to communicate it for the
public good, and to prevent those spurious receipts that go about of the Hel-

writings, too numerous for insertion here, is given in the 2d vol. of Haller's Bib. Med. Practica.—
His son Francis Mercurius Van Helmont, was not less remarkable for eccentricity than his father.
Besides several medical Tracts, he wrote a curious book entitled Alphabeti vere naturalis hebraici
delineatio, wherein he attempts to prove that the shape of the organs concerned in speech is corres-
pondent to the iigvire of the Hebrew letters.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 157

montian laudanum, which request of mine being almost as soon granted as
made, I think myself bound both to own his readiness to oblige the public, and
to acquaint them with his way of making so considerable a medicine, as I prac-
tised it; though if I had received his directions in writing, they might have been
more full and methodical. But though I perceived that he sometimes varies his
preparations a little, yet that laudanum proving very successful, that was made
according to the annexed paper, I think it will not be amiss to keep to that;
which I wish could have been published before the season of the quinces were so
far advanced.

Laudanum Helmontii Junioris.

Take of opium a quarter of a pound, and of the juice of quinces four pounds
at the least;* the opium being cut into very thin slices, and then as it were
minced, to reduce it into smaller parts, is to be put into, and well mixed with
the liquor, first made luke-warm, and fermented with a moderate heat for eight
or ten days, rather more than less; then filter-)- it, and having infused in it of
cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, of each an ounce, J let them stand three or four
days more; if it be a full week, it may be so much the better; then filter <5> the
liquor once more, having let it boil a walme or two after the spices have been
put in ; this being done, evaporate away the superfluous water to the consistence
of an extract, or to what other consistence you please. Lastly, incorporate very
well with it two ounces of the best saffron reduced to fine powder. ||

According to the consistence you desire to have your medicine of, you may
order it so, as either to make it up into a mass of pills, in which form I have
caused it to be given, or keep it in a liquid form ; but in this latter case the
evaporation must have been made more sparingly, that after the putting in of
the saffron,^ it may not grow too thick. In this form the dose may be from five
or six drops to ten, or fewer, according to circumstances ; and of the pills a
somewhat less quantity is required.

* For near five pounds would perhaps do better. — Original,
t Which circumstance the author often omits, though I do not. — Original.
X The author sometimes uses half an ounce more of each spice. — Original.
§ Or strain it well through a canvas bag. — Original.

II Sometimes the author instead of the powder, makes use of as much extract as can be obtained
from that quantity of saftVon.^Original.
? Or its extract.— Original.

158 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67A,

A Discourse denying the P re-existence of ^Icalizate or Fixed Salt in any Subject,
before being exposed to the Action of the Fire. To which is added a Corifirma-
tionof an Assertion J delivered in Numb. 101, of these Tracts, viz. That Alca-
lizate, or Fixed Salts, extracted out of the ashes of Vegetables, do not differ from
each other: the same likeiuise affirmed of Volatile Salts and Vinous Spirits. By
Dr. Daniel Coxe. N° 107, P- 150.

The alcalizate or fixed salts of plants, extracted out of their ashes after incine-
ration, or out of tartar calcined, do, in my apprehension, neither pre-exist in
the vegetables that afforded them, before they were exposed to the action of
the fire ; nor do they differ considerably, I am certain not sensibly, from each
other. The former part of this position may be thus made out.

1 . I never yet found, that any vegetable, or indeed animal or mineral sub-
stance, did in the least manifest to the taste or by its effects, that it contained
any such salt. Many plants and roots lightly bruised, affect the eyes and nose
after the manner of volatile salts, and several bite the tongue and strike upon
the palate. Some herbs yield a copious volatile salt, immediately after they are
pressed by a considerable degree of heat ; and many sorts of earths abound with
it, so that it is highly probable, they often actually exist in vegetables, in the
very same form, wherein they appear to us on distillation from the herbs them-
selves, or from soot. And that acid salts do really exist in many plants, is dis-
played by their taste and effects. They may also be obtained without fire or
any artificial analysis; as is evident in tartar, and the reputed essential salts of
many plants; in verjuice, vinegar, and verdegris, whose acidities maybe con-
creted, and made to appear in a dry form. Now did alcalies exist in the plants
before the analysis, especially so copiously as they sometimes appear afterwards,
they would certainly betray themselves by some visible sensible property, or
other symptom of their presence.

2. Did alcalies pre-exist in plants, probably animals, whose sole food they
are, would also abound therewith; whereas, on the contrary, we do not find
the least traces of them, either in blood, urine, bones, horns, &c. which all
abound with volatile salts; nor in some other parts, excrements and juices,
that afford much acidity, which may frequently by coagulation be brought to a
saline form or consistence. Nor can it reasonably be pretended, that the fer-
ment of the stomach and other parts, several digestions and repeated circula-
tions, have altered its property, and at length rendered it volatile. For first,
alcalies seem to be of a very fixed nature, and are not easily volatilized : and
daily experience will evince, that the chyle does not in the least participate,
either in taste or any other property, with alcalisate salts. Besides, herbs

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ISQ

taken out of the omasus of ruminating animals, without any further digestion
or preparation, yield a volatile salt, when fermented or putrified in the open air,
without additament.

3. Most vegetables, whether woods or herbs, if burnt whilst they are green,
and with a smothering fire, yield salts which are far enough from alcalisate;
being either neutral or acid, or to speak more properly, tartareous; for they
almost exactly resemble purified tartar; and by distillation yield the very same
substances. Indeed some few herbs, such as satureja, rosemary, &c. which
abound with a sprightly volatile oil, if they are well dried, on simple incineration
yield an alcalisate salt ; so do some dry woods. But that they are produced by
the fire and not separated, I shall prove from experiments which I think un-
questionable.

4. In the most natural method of analysing plants, which is by fermentation
or putrifaction without additaments, or the intervening of a suspicious analyser,
we receive oil, acid spirit, and volatile salt copiously ; all which did evidently
pre-exist. But if the herbs are perfectly or entirely putrified, little or no alcali
can be extracted from them ; as neither from rotten nor putrified wood ; the
active salts, by whose combination the alcali is produced, being either expired or
evaporated.

Next I am to inquire, how the fire produces this alcali : whether by the
changing of one single pre-existing principle ; or by enabling any among them
to make so notable an alteration on or in the other; or lastly, whether it is
effected by the union of two or more active principles, which thereby become
different from what they were before the said combination ?

I shall not at present trouble you with the reasons, experiments, and observa-
tions, which have induced me to reject the former ; but briefly suggest those
which encourage and dispose me to believe and assent to the latter : so that this
is my position : that alcali salts do result from the combination or union of the
saline and sulphureous principle. But whether it is the volatile or acid salt,
which combines with the oil or sulphur, is now the subject of our inquiry. The
ensuing considerations seem to determine in favour of the acids.

First, tartar, which is sensibly acid, and from which volatile salt cannot be
separated by any commonly known method, by bare calcination, becomes a
strong and perfect alcali. Secondly, nitre, an undoubted acid, with a small pro-
portion of mineral or vegetable sulphur, is converted into a genuine fiery alcali.
Thirdly, nitre which is made by the affusion of an acid spirit on an alcali, may be
almost totally distilled into an acid spirit, there appearing not the least traces of
a volatile salt, and scarcely any of the alcali, out of which it was chiefly pro-
duced.

l60 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO }674.

But these are very weak and inconsiderable, compared with argiinients,
which necessitate me to believe, that it emerges from the union of the volatile
salt with the oleaginous or sulphureous principle. For,

1 . There seems to be a great contrariety between acids and alcalies. Being
mixed, they heat, contend, and mortify each other; whatsoever one dissolves
the other precipitates : whereas, were the salt of alcalies of a nature approaching
to acids, they would more plainly unite without that violent contention which
usually ensues.

2. Alcalies and volatile salts agree in most properties, excepting their different
degrees of gravitation. They are both diuretical and de-obstruent; they both
dissolve sulphureous bodies; agree in their contrariety to acids, but mix toge-
ther quietly without noise, heat, ebullition, or impairing each other's virtues, and
are easily separable ; the same in quantity and quality they were before mixture.

3. Tartareous or essential salts of vegetables cannot become alcalies, until
their acidity be driven away ; during which operation, the volatile salts and oil
uniting, become more ponderous than the acid, which before gravitated more
than either of them in their separate state ; so that such a degree of fire, as will
wholly dissipate the acid spirit, cannot elevate the more ponderous alcali. Not
but that, contrary to what is commonly asserted, the most fixed alcali may be
sublimed to great height without additaments, by any intense degree of heat :
for I have frequently reduced a pound of it to 3 or 4 ounces, and recovered a
considerable proportion, which was caught in well contrived vessels, some yards
above the crucible, little if at all altered from what it was immediately before it
suffered this violence. On this account chiefly it is, that soot yields some small
quantity of an alcali, especially that nearest the focus.

4. Alcalies may be divided into oil and volatile salt, by easy and natural
methods of procedure. I myself have many ways effected this in part; and
a very worthy person, in whom I can perfectly confide, assured me, he has
frequently resolved the whole body of alcalies into the two distinct substances of
volatile salt and oil, receiving of the latter a small proportion ; which is also
confirmed by those trials I have made on the same subject.

I could suggest many more arguments and experiments; but these being suf-
ficient, and I think indissoluble, I proceed to confute the pretensions of acid
salts to an interest in this new production. First, what concerns tartar, its
acidity is driven away in great quantity before it can become alcalisate; and a
volatile salt may, to my knowledge, be by divers methods separated from it.
Secondly, as to nitre, though that in distillations yields an acid spirit, yet it
abounds also in volatile salt, as I could demonstrate from the manner of its
generation, and from irrefragable experiments. And besides, perhaps in the

TOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. l6j

operation of the sulphur on the acid salt, supposing it such, there is a comminu-
tion of its parts, and thereby that made a volatile salt which was before acid,
only magnitude discriminating between them: and that they are often thus pro-
duced by each other, I could fully and at large evince.

Having dispatched this, I cannot but take notice, that I am credibly inform-
ed, that many persons, of no ordinary repute for their skill in chemistry, and
other arts subservient to experimental philosophy, have been pleased to censure,
in an unusual measure of severity, an assertion, accidentally dropped from my
pen, in a discourse concerning the volatile salts of vegetables, in N° 101 of the
Philos. Trans. ; which, although circumscribed by a parenthesis, and an alien to
the main design and scope of my undertaking, yet was so far from being there-
by protected, that it has sustained the brunt of many unkind reproaches, and
been represented as a position without foundation in reason or experience. I
shall not endeavour, by an elaborate apology, to vindicate myself from that dis-
grace, whereunto a charge of being inconsiderate, injudicious, or (which is still
worse) insincere, must necessarily expose me; but shall nakedly and simply re-
hearse, without flourishes, digressions or circumlocution, the reasons, obser-
vations, and experiments, which induced me to embrace and publish an opinion,
so contrary to what has been hitherto generally received : and I shall then ap-
peal unto all unprejudiced, impartial, and intelligent persons, whether the ar-
raigned position be ungrounded and temerarious ; or rather, whether the argu-
ments I have produced in its favour, and for its confirmation, do not render it
highly probable, and excuse any, who shall give it entertainment^ from sus-
picion of levity or too prompt credulity.

My assertion was, that alcalisate or fixed salts, extracted out of the ashes of
vegetables, do not differ from each other; as neither do their vinous spirits; yet
with this restriction, if they were highly rectified or purified. And that I may-
further manifest, I do not distrust my cause, I shall add, nor volatile salts, not
only of vegetables, which I did heretofore faintly affirm, but even those yielded
by animals or minerals, with the before-mentioned limitatidn of due puri-
fication.

First then, I say, that salts perfectly alcalised, differ not from each other in
sensible, nor, so far as I have had opportunity to enquire, in hidden properties.
It has been a constant and general persuasion, that many fixed salts do retain
some, at least, the specifical properties of those vegetables, out of whose ashes
they were extracted. The salt of wormwood and mint are said to be stomachi-
cal; that of the greater celandine proper for icterics ; those of broom, ashkeys,
elder, bean-stalks, &c. diuretical; of rosemary, sage, &c. cephalic; and others,
too many now to enumerate, which are thought to be endowed with very dif-

VOL. II. Y

l62 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674.

ferent medicinal properties. I am not very forward to question and quarrel
with opinions and maxims established by universal consent, and confirmed by
the experience of many ages, unless I have sufficient reason to distrust their
veracity and validity. In the present case, the persuasion of the ancients, and
the position, which I shall endeavour to illustrate, though at the first appear-
ance they seem diametrically opposite, may be easily reconciled. I formerly
declared, that most vegetables burned whilst green or moist, and with a
sm.othering fire, yield a kind of neutral salt,- which may be called tartareous,
and sometimes not improperly essential, many of them retaining the vomitive,
purging, sweating, diuretical, opiate, or other general, and perhaps some spe-
cifical, properties, wherewith the plants were ennobled which produced them.
Now, whether it is some small quantity of the essential oil, which mixed with
the saline principle renders it so variously medicinal, the essential oils of plants
being manifestly as it were a compendium of the plant, which they do equally
exactly resemble in smell, taste, and other qualities : or, whether those virtues
are the result of the crisis and mixture of the several principles ; certain I am,
that, after the oil is evaporated by an intense heat, or the crasis disturbed by
avolation of some parts, and new combinations of what remains, farewell all
specifical qualities, and consequently all other differences, than what purity
and impurity, and several degrees of heat may occasion; some being more
white and fiery than others. Now some salts are much more easily deprived of
their acid and oily parts, than others and in some, on the contrary, the oil is
of so fixed a nature, or rather so closely combined with the other principles,
that it must be a very intense heat which can disjoin them, and thereby reduce
the salt to the common standard or aggregate of qualities, wherein all alcalies
agree.

The industrious Tachenius somewhere pretends to demonstrate, that there is
a real difference between the alcalies of different plants ; which he would prove
by the various effects they have upon a sublimate dissolved in common water.
But this is easily resolved by what I before suggested; as also by an easy obvious
experiment, which may at any season in any plant be readily proved. Take
what wood or plant you please, burn it green ; the salt, being extracted out of
the ashes, will, according to the different degrees of fire to which it shall suc-
cessively be exposed, variously, influence the mercurial solution ; the several
preecipitates differing no less from each other, than when made with the salts of
different plants.

This is also most evident in tartar, which, the less and more gently it is
calcined, the more salt it yields; and on the contrary, a much smaller propor-
tion, if suddenly and with the highest degrees of heat. That which is prepared

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1 63

by the former method, is mild and gentle, its taste approaching somewhat to-
wards that of acids; whereas the other, which has passed through the violence
of fire, has not the least affinity therewith, and can almost as little be endured
by the tongue as a live coal of actual fire. And there being very many degrees
of heat, whereunto the tartar may be successively exposed, according to the said
degrees, the manner of applying it, the space of time, and the substances
employed in its calcination ; the result will be different, and produce different
effects : and the very same sort of tartar will oftentimes become sensibly differ-
ent upon these methods of procedure,' and produce most of the appearances
mentioned by Tachenius. And sometimes several parcels of tartar, which seem
to our taste and eye calcined to the same degree ; yet the operations in nice ex-
periments are frequently various. And to me it does not seem so very wonder-
ful, that many concretes do really differ, which to the senses appear simple and
uniform; of which many causes may be assigned. A great number and variety
of instances might be here introduced, to clear this truth, if it were not already
sufficiently known and believed.

But to proceed where I digressed ; what I have asserted, is confirmed by the
great variety, which is most visible in pot-ashes : some, being highly alcalizate,
are fiery hot ; others cold, watery, nitrous to the palate, and no less weak in
effects than taste ; whereof soap-boilers, dyers, and other mechanics are very
sensible. All which proceeds from the woods, being, when they are burnt,
green or dry; from their abounding with oily, aqueous, or acetous parts; as
also from the several degrees of heat employed in their production. Those who
make glass, and especially the finer sorts, complain, that they cannot, with
the same quantities and proportions of ingredients, always produce the same
sort of glass: which they, not without reason, ascribe to the differences in their
ashes. This must necessarily often happen according to the above mentioned
hypothesis.

An Account of some Books. N° 107, p« ISQ.

I. Erasmi Bartholini de Naturae Mirabilibus Questiones Academicse. Haf.
1674, in 4to.

The subjects of these disquisitions are twelve, viz.

I. The figures of bodies in general. — 2. The figure of snow. — 3. The pores
of bodies. — 4. Attraction. — 5. The Cartesian physiology. — 6. Experiments. —
7. Physiological hypotheses. — 8. Custom. — 9. Nature. — 10. The study of the
Danish tongue. — 11. Judgment and memory. — 12. The secrecy of sciences.

II. Thomas Bartholini de Anatome Practica ex Cadaveribus morbosis ador-
nand'A Consilium. Haf 1674, in 4to.

y 2

l64 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I674.

Taking it for granted, that it is the least part of a physician'-s and surgeon's
skill, to know the constitution of the parts according to the usual course of na-
ture in sound bodies, and that the main consists in the inspection and con-
sideration of particular subjects dead of remarkable diseases, and thence com-
posing an anatomy useful in practice ; the author declares that he used in his
work that perished by the fire, the same method in the anatomy of men and
women deceased by considerable sicknesses, that he did in his Anatome Refor-
mata, made up of his observations taken from sound corpses. As for example,
what is the situation, shape, colour, connection, substance, &c. of the brain,
lungs, liver, intestines, and the like, in such as died of the apoplexy, epilepsy,
consumption, fevers, dropsy, jaundice, small-pox, cough, &c. ; solicitously
examining the preternatural constitution of every part, in those and other dis-
eases, in order to the better understanding of the places affected, and the con-
junct causes.*

III. La Lettre de Charles Drelincourt a M. Porree, sur la Methode, pre-
tendue Nouvelle, de tailler la pierre : avec trois autres a Monsieur Vallot,
Premier Medicin de sa Majeste. A Leide, 1674, in l2mo.

These letters were written by the learned author, on the occasion of a new
lithotomist in France, pretending to cut all sorts and sexes of mankind for the
stone in the bladder, how large soever, without any considerable medical pre-
paratives ; which, as to men, he would perform by introducing into the anus
some fingers of his right hand, well oiled, and thereby finding the stone im-
mediately, and thrusting it into the neck of the bladder, where it is to be held
fast by an assistant ; and thereupon having withdrawn his right-hand fingers,
he would place his patient in a due posture, and then oil some fingers of his left
hand, and slide them into the same place, turning the neck of the bladder, to-
gether with the stone, towards the small left trochanter, till with his right hand
he could draw the skin of the perinasum towards the right femur, where it is to
be held with his left thumb, and then with a fit single instrument he would make
a semi-lunar incision, and so without any other mystery, as he speaks, draw
out the stone, and then apply healing medicines.

As to women, he would perform the operation dirigendo digitos in sinuin
pudoris, &c.

Of this operation Monsieur Drelincourt observes; first, that it is an inven-
tion as old as Celsus himself, 1600 years ago. Secondly, that it cannot be used

* Since Bartholine's time, morbid anatomy has been prosecuted with great diligence by De Haen,
Ludwig, Stoll and "Walter, in Germany; by Sandifort, in Holland 3 by Morgagni, in Italy; by
Lieutaud, Portal and Pinel, in France; and by the Monroes, the Hunters, Baillie and others, in
Great Britain.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, l65

Upon adult persons, especially when they are very corpulent and fat, and the
stone large and closely adhering; since it appears not, how in such subjects the
operator can reach the bottom of the bladder. Thirdly, that it is very doubtful,
whether the bladder can be thus thrust and turned at pleasure, as he pretends ;
and that it cannot but exceedingly torture the patient, to make such com-
pressions, as must needs be made, both to thrust down the stone, and to force
the whole bladder to descend to the perinasum. And fourthly, it seems to our
author very suspicious, that this operator puts his fingers into the fundament,
before he places his patient in a due posture to cut him. Fifthly, notice is here
taken, that this operator dispatches some in two or three minutes, but others he
holds above thirty minutes; and our author can give himself no other reason
for it, but that he deceives those, and cuts these. Sixthly, he notes that this
pretended artist makes in some but very slight and superficial compressions,
and that very few of his patients make water at the wound, even not at the
moment of the operation. What other cause can there be, than that those
who urine are really cut, and those that do not urine, receive but a mere in-
cision ? Seventhly, he observes, that those that are cured of their incision in
five or six days, whom he proves to have been deceived, are free from all the
ordinary symptoms of this cutting, but remain subject to the same dysuria, and
make as thick and fetid urine as before : whereas in others, whom he cuts in-
deed, the cicatrice is long in forming, and is preceded by divers accidents ; but
then, indolence, and the exemption from fits of the stone, and the clearness of
the urine, do presently follow after the operation. To all which our author
adds, that his proofs are more than convincing, when at the end of three days,
upon sounding, a stone is found in some, and none in others.

In the second and third letters, our author relates, that a certain person of
Normandy, whom the new pretender affirmed upon sounding to have no stone,
was cut of a stone of three ounces weight ; and that he dying some days after
it, and being opened, his bladder was found not only full of very hard callosi-
ties, like ganglions about the nerves, but also lumps of a white, grumous, solid
and friable matter, like white tartar, which was as it were cemented upon the
scirrhous substance of the bladder : besides, there were fastened to the same
bladder certain caruncles, resembling the heart of a pullet, large at their basis,
and by little and little growing narrower, and ending in a point, of a fresh Ver-
million colour, which end was loose, whereas their basis stuck close to the
bladder, by very many filaments, which as so many roots nourished them, and
made them look so fresh in this their soil.

Lastly, He observed store of little strange bodies, that were so interposed
between the woof of the fibres of the bladder, that it was thereby exceedingly

l66 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 16/4.

tumified and scirrhous. He says, be cut it athwart, and found the inner sub-
stance of it very full of vessels, of which he sounded many, and found, that
though it was hard, yet it was very full of pipes running through it, which
made him at first imagine, that as the spermatic and hypogastric channels of a
breeding woman grow large in proportion as the embryo is nourished ; so these
hypogastric veins and arteries of the bladder were all dilated, and widened, to
feed these caruncles, which from thence, as their placenta, drew all their
nourishment : but when he saw that these tubes did far exceed their ordinary
number, he believed that this was from thence, because that each capillary
branch, whose smallness commonly hides them from us, was much stretched in
this case, to furnish this matrix, (if it may be so called) with more blood than
ordinary. ^

Continuation of Dr. Daniel Coxes Discourse, begun in N° 107, touching the
Identity of all Volatile Salts, and Vinous Spirits; tvith tiuo surprizing Experi^
ments concerning Vegetable Salts, perfectly resembling the SJiape of the Plants,
whence they had been obtained.

Concerning volatile salts and vinous spirits, there is nothing worthy of no-
tice. One of the two surprising experiments concerning vegetable salts, relates
to a lixivium of fern-ashes of a very red colour, the other to a sublimation of
volatile alkali from a mixture of equal parts of sal ammoniac and potash. The
sublimed salt adhering to the inside of the glass head or receiver, exhibited a
pleasing representation of firs, pines and other trees.

More Observations from Mr. Leuenhoeck. N° 108, p. 178.

I took the feye of a cow, and having with a great pin pierced the cornea,
found in the aqueous humour some few crystalline globules swimming. The
dark-brown colour which I saw in this eye, consisted of dark gray globules. —
The crystalline humour, which in hardness almost resembles a nutmeg preserved,
I have with a rasor cut asunder, and found it made up of orbicular scaly parts,
lying upon one another, which had their beginning out of the centre, and all
consisted of crystalline globules.

Having viewed the vitreous humour lying deeper in the eye, I saw many
more globules than in the aqueous, which I took out from the top of the eye.
The transparent cornea, after I had let it dry for several days, I viewed also,
and found it likewise to consist of crystalline globules. In the second tunicle of
the eye, there appeared divers very fine glittering colours. It was black, and
consisted also of globules, and viewing the single globules, I found them dark.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. iGf

The third tunicle was exceedingly thin and tender, and having viewed it, I found
it also to consist of globules united. I viewed three optic ner\'es of cows; but
I could find no hollowness in them ; I only took notice that they were made up
of many filamentous particles, of a very soft substance, as if they only consisted
of the corpuscles of the brain joined together, the threads were so very soft and
loose: they were composed of conjoined globules, and wound about again with
particles consisting of other transparent globules. I viewed the sixth pair of
nerves, called par vagum, cutting it off about the pipe in the lungs of a cow,
and finding it to consist of a very few filamentous particles, composed of globules
joined together, which thready parts are very strong, and they lay as wound
about with a matter made up of pellucid globules, of which the small threads
were composed. I found in them not only one hollowness, but as often as I
cut the nerve asunder, the hollowness still continued therein, and I found in
some places not only one cavity, but two or three cavities at once; and where
the cavity of the nerve was any thing large, it was lined about with films, as if
they had been purposely contrived there to keep open those cavities, and to
keep them from being compressed by the surrounding parts.

About two leagues from this' town is an inland-sea, called Berk else Sea,
whose bottom in many places is very moorish. This water is in winter very
clear, but about the beginning or in the midst of summer it grows whitish, and
there are then small green clouds permeating it. Passing lately over this sea,
at a time when it blew a fresh gale of wind, and observing the water as above
described, I took up some of it in a glass vessel, which having viewed the next
day, I found moving in it several earthy particles, and some green streaks,
spirally ranged ; and the whole compass of each of these streaks was about the
thickness of a hair : other particles had but the beginning of the said streak ; all
consisting of small green globules interspersed ; among all which there crawled
abundance of little animals, some of which were roundish ; others were of an
oval figure : on these latter I saw two legs near the head, and two little fins on
the other end of their body : others were somewhat larger than an oval, and
these were very slow in their motion, and few in number. These animalcula
had divers colours, some being whitish, others pellucid; others had green and
very shining little scales ; others again were green in the middle, and before and
behind white, others grayish. And the motion of most of them in the water
was so swift and so various, upwards, downwards, and round about, that I
confess I could not but wonder at it. I judge that some of these little creatures
were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones, which I have
hitherto seen in cheese, wheaten flower, mould, and the like.

l6S PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [anNO 1674.

^n Account of some Books. N" 108, p. 182.

I. Die Africanische Landschaft Fetu beschrieben durch Wilhelm Johan
Muller von Harburgh ; Gedruckt zu Hamburgh, 1673, in 12mo.

This piece composed and printed in High Dutch, contains divers not in-
considerable observations, made by an author that lived eight years in Fetu ;
a country situated about the middle of the gold-coast in Guinea, in 5-^ deg.
northern latitude. Observations, not of sufficient importance however to be
reprinted here.

II. The first Book of the Art of Metals, written in Spanish by Alonso Barba,
&c. and Englished by the R. H. Edward Earl of Sandwich. London, 1674,
in 8vo.

It is here observed — 1. That the provinces of the West Indies abound as
much in salt as in metals: that the sulphurous liquor naphtha and petroleum
will take fire at a great distance from the flame ; here confirmed by a sad in-
stance, in which it came to pass, that a labourer being let down into the bot-
tom of a well with a candle (in a lantern) to repair it, the petroleum immediately
through the holes of the lantern sucked, (as they speak) the flame to itself,
and set fire on the whole well ; which instantly discharged itself like a piece of
cannon, and blew the poor man into pieces, and took off an arm of a tree that
hung over the well. — ^That though Albertus M. and others think that marcasites
contain no metal in them ; yet experience has taught the contrary. — ^That where
orpiment is found, it is a certain sign of a mine of gold, whereof also it always
contains some little particle. — That there is a water in Peru, near Guancavelica,
of which all the cattle that drink it die; and which when put into moulds of
any size, and being for a few days exposed to the sun, it becomes a perfect
stone, with which they bnild their houses : and that in the mountain Pacocava,
a league from the mines of Verenguela de Pacagues, there are springs, that are
whitish, inclining to a yellow, of so petrifying a nature, that as the water runs
along, it concretes into hard and weighty stones of diflferent shapes. — ^That
abundance of brimstone in mines is a good sign of their richness : a consider-
able instance of which, is the rose coloured ore of the famous mountain of St.
Isabella of new Potosi, in the rich province of the Lipes, which is almost all
plate, and bred among such abundance of brimstone, that the cavities in the
rocks are presently all on fire, if a lighted candle touch them. — ^That the opi-
nion confining the number of metals to seven is very uncertain, since it is very
probable, that in the bowels of the earth there be more sorts than we yet know ;
and that in the mountains of Sudnos in Bohemia there was some years ago

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1 CQ

found a metal, by them called Bismuto, which is a metal between tin and
lead, and yet distinct from them both.

That Carabaya in Peru contains plenty of the finest gold, as fine as the finest
gold of Arabia, it being of the fineness of 23 carats and 3 grains; which though
formerly it had only been gathered up in fragments, washed off by rains, yet it
is now wrought by following the veins of it under ground. That in the circuit
of the Charcas there is such abundance of silver-mines, that they alone, if there
were no other in the world, were sufficient to fill it with riches.

That there are mines of other metals in the same provinces; as of copper,
tin, lead, iron, quicksilver, &c.

There is a second book annexed to the first; on the refining of silver by quick-
silver.

III. The Royal Almanack, &c. by N. Stevenson, one of his Majesty's Gun-
ners, London, for l675, in 12mo.

This' full and ingeniously contrived diary, contains first the true places of the
sun, moon, and other planets, with their rising and setting. Secondly, the high
water at London-bridge, with rules to serve other places after the new theory of
tides. Thirdly, the eclipses ; as also the tables of the sun's rising, moon's
southing, moon's rising and setting. Fourthly, the moon's and the other
planets appulses to the fixed stars for the meridian of London, by Mr. John
riamsteed.

A Strange Kind of Bleeding in a Little Child. By Mr. Sam. du Gard.

N° 109, p. 193.

A child, about a quarter of a year old, at Littleshal, in Shropshire, was taken
with a bleeding at the nose and ears, and in the hinder part of the head, which
lasted for three days ; at the end of which the nose and ears ceased bleeding;
but still blood came, like sweat, from the head. Three days before the death
of the child, which happened the sixth day after she began to bleed, the blood
came more violently from her head, and streamed out to some distance. She
bled also on her shoulders, and at the waist in such quantities, that the linen
next her might be wrung it was so wet ; and every day required clean linen.
She for three days bled also at the toes, at the bend of her arms, at the joints of
her fingers of each hand, and at the fingers' ends; and in such measure, that in
a quarter of an hour the mother has caught from the droppings of the fingers,
near as much as the hollow of her hand could hold. All the time of this bleed-
ing the child never cried very much, but only groaned; though about three weeks
before, it had such a violent fit of crying as the mother said she never heard.
After the child was dead, there appeared in those places where the blood came,
little holes like the prickings of a needle.

VOL. II. Z

170 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I674,

A Further Account of the Zirchnitzer Sea. By Dr. Ediv. Broiun. N° lOg, p. I94.

This lake is encompassed with high hills at some little distances; bat I saw
no snow on them; but on other mountains in the country, as I travelled to
and from this lake, I observed snow in June. Upon hills on the side of great
lakes, the snow lies not so long as on hills more distant. The holes for the
water are generally stony, and not in soft or loose earth ; yet in one or two
places the earth has been known to sink, and fall in, particularly near a village
called sea-dorf. The great holes are the same every year; but possibly part of
the water may sometimes find or make new passages. When the water begins
to retire, it is seen in these holes for a while, but afterwards it descends lower
out of sight. There remains in June no water, at least not any that is consider-
able for any time, in places more elevated than those holes, most of it draining
away towards the holes in the valleys ; the rest is either imbibed by the earth,
or if any remain in the hilly or rocky part, it is evaporated. The fish are taken
at these holes when the water descends. For besides that the water spreads
speedily, the Prince of Eckenberg, who is lord of this lake, and the parts about
it, will not permit them to be taken at any other time. The holes are of dif-
ferent sizes and shapes. Some perpendicular at the beginning and then oblique ;
others oblique at first; scarcely two exactly alike. The water ascends so plenti-
fully, that it fills the lake in a short time, especially the valleys; but I cannot
determine it to a day: for some years the water rises so plentifully, that it fills
all about Niderdorf, and almost to Zirchnitz. The water that spouts seems
somewhat clear in the air; but being spread about, it looks as formerly in the
lake. The water is not always at the same height, but somewhat differing ac-
cording to rains, snows, or drought; and they are sensible of its height by the
tops of the hills in it, and its spreading towards Zirchnitz ; but it alters not very
much till it begins to go away. No river enters the latter, but only inconsider-
able rivulets on the south and east side ; nor has it any known outlet but by
the holes. The country is high about the lake. Probably this lake may hold
dependence of, and communication with some subterraneous great lake, or
magazine of water, belonging to these hilly regions, which when full, and
running over, may vent itself with force and plenty into this field, and when
scant of water, absorb and drink in the same again ; the water of the lake, re-
turning but from whence it came, having no river running out of it whereby
to be discharged. It freezes in winter like other lakes; so that the fishes of
this lake have a closer habitation than those in others; for they are under the ice
a part of the winter, and under the earth a part of the summer. What they

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TIIANSACTIONS. I7I

call the fishcr-stoTie, is a large stone \ipon one of the hills, or elevated parts of
the field, which whenever it appears above water, the fishermen, being upon the
lake, take notice of it, and know thereby, that in a few days the water will
retire under ground. For after the filling of the lake in September, the water
never decreases so low again, as to let the fisher-stone appear, till it begins to
retire under ground.

Observations made upon several Voyages, undertaken to find a way for Sailing
about the North to the East- Indies, and for returning the same way from thence
hither: together ivith Instructions given by the Dutch East- India Company for
the Discovery of the famous Land of Jesso near Japan. To which is added a
Relation of Sailing through the Northern America to the East-Indies. Eng-
lished by the Editor out of Dutch, which had been composed by Dirick Rembrantz
van Nierop, and printed at Amsterdam iQj A, in Ato. N° IO9, p. I97.

The attempts at a north-east passage to India, have always failed of the
otject. And as to the remarks and observations contained in this paper, which
are chiefly about the land of Jesso, and the adjacent parts, they are rendered
totally useless at this time, by the more accurate relations of modern important
voyages.

Some Observations concerning a possible Passage to the East-Indies by tlie
Northern America Westward. N° lOQ, p. 20/.

Of this passage, much was at first discoursed, merely by hearsay; as maybe
seen in the hydrographical discourse of W. Bourne, printed anno J 594. Next
one Hessel Gerritse, anno l6l2, wrote of this passage thus : since the English,
upon the several voyages of W. Barentz, made some attempts for the north-
east; the directors of the Dutch East-India Company, for some years last past
sent thither one Hudson, who not being able to find a passage to the east,
sailed to the west, whence, without effecting any thing, he came into England,
Afterwards being sent out again by the English, anno 1610, and having sailed
300 Dutch miles and come to the west of Bakalaos, and wintered there at about
52 deg. north latitude, and desirous to search further, he was, together with
the rest of the governors of the ship, set on shore by the seamen, who refused
to go further, but came home, having been at sea 10 months, whereas they had
been victualled but for eight.

All hopes of the north-west passage have since been completely disappointed,
from the researches of the modern voyages,

z2

172 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1674.

An Account of some Boohs. N° lOQ, p. 209.

I. A Discourse made before the Royal Society, concerning the Use of Dupli-
cate Proportion, in sundry important Particulars; with a New Hypothesis of
Elastic or Springy Bodies. By Sir Wm. Petty, Knight,* &c.

* Sir Wm. Petty was a very remarkable instance of a universal genius, being highly eminent as a
philosopher, a physician, a linguist, mathematician, mechanist, politician, &c. He was born at
Rumsey, in Hampshire, l623. While a boy, he spent much of his time among the artificers there,
by which he acquired a knowledge of almost every trade that he inspected j handling the several tools
with a skill like an expert workman. With equal facility he obtained the Latin, Greek, and French
languages, as well as a good knowledge in mathematics. He went to study at tlie university of
Caen, in Normandy 5 and after some stay there, returned to England, where he was preferred in the
king's navy. In l643, when the civil war raged, he retired to the Continent, where he passed some
years in France, Flanders, and Holland, prosecuting his studies, especially physic. In l647^ he
obtained a patent to teach the art of double writing for 17 years. Adhering to the prevailing party
of tlie nation, he went to Oxford, where he taught anatomy and chemistry, and was created a doctor
of physic. He may be accounted, as it were, the father of the R. S. since here he grew into such
repute, that at his house were held those philosophical meetings, which preceded and laid tlie foun-
dation of that learned society. In l630 he was made professor of anatomy there j and soon after, a
member of the college of physicians in London, as also professor of music at Greshara college, London.
In 1652 he was appointed physician to the army in Ireland j as also to three lord-lieutenants succes-
sively, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell ; by the last of whom he was appointed his
secretary, and clerk of the council, and by his interest also, a burgess for Westloo in Cornwall, in
Richard Cromwell's parliament, which met in January l658. After the rebellion was over in Ire-
land, he was appointed one of tlae commissioners for dividing the forfeited lands among tlie army who
suppressed it. In Ireland he acquired a large fortune, but not without suspicions and charges of unfair
practices in his offices. So that he was impeached in parliament of high crimes and misdemeanors,
which in l659 procured his dismission from his employments. He then retired to Ireland, till tlie
restoration of King Charles the 2d; when he returned to England, where he resigned his professor-
ship at Gresham college, was graciously received by the king, and was appointed one of the commis-
sioners of the court of claims. Also, in \66\, he received the honour of knighthood, with the grant
of a new patent, constituting him surveyor- general of Ireland, where he was also chosen a member
of the parliament.

On the incorporating of the R. S. Sir Wm. was one of the first members, and of its first council.
About tliis time he invented his double-bottomed ship, to sail against wind and tide, a project which,
not completely answering in all respects, was afterwards given up. In I666, he suffered great losses
by tlie fire of London ; but afterwards, by projects of various works and manufactures, he augmented
his fortune. On the first meeting of tlie Phil. Society at Dubhn, on the plan of that at London, every
thing was submitted to Sir Wm. P.'s direction 5 and when it was formed into a regular society, in
l684, he was chosen the first president : so that he was in a manner the father both of the society of
London and of Dublin. But, a few years after, all his great projects, as well philosophical as politi-
cal and commercial, were determined by the effects of a gangrene in his foot, occasioned by tlie
swelling of the gout, which put a period to his life, at his house in Piccadilly, Westminster, Dec. \6,
l687j in the 63th year of his age; leaving behind hira an immense fortune, amounting to about
15,0001. per annum.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 173

The author of this discourse, much addicted to apply speculations to use and
practice, has given in this exercise several instances, wherein the consideration
of duplicate and sub-duplicate proportion, or the consideration of sides and
their squares, is of use in human affairs. Those instances are — 1. In the
drawing or driving powers, which force ships or other bodies through the water,
with reference to the respective velocities caused thereby. — 2. In the shapes or
sharpness of bodies, cutting or dividing the water, through which they are
driven or drawn, and in the different velocities arising from thence, where the
bodies and forces are equal. — 3. In the strength of timbers, or other homo-
geneous materials applied to buildings, to carts, or any other machinery intended
for strength: and how by a model to judge the sufficiency of such engine as is
represented by it. — 4. In the effect of oars upon equal and like vessels, accord-
ing to their numbers, length, blades, and motions, with or against the stream of
smooth or uneven waters. — 5. In the motion or travelling of horses, on their
several paces, and with different burthens on them. — 6. In the strength and
velocity of mills and their wheels. — 7- In the effects of gunpowder. — 8. In the
distance at which sounds may be heard. — Q. In the distances at which odorife-
rous matters may be smelt. — 10^ In the distance at which the objects of sight
may be seen. — 11. In the time of the returns made by vibrating pendulums. —
12. In the lives of men and their duration. — 13. In musical and sounding
bodies, such as strings and bells. — 14. In the effects and motions of fire and
burning spirits. — 15. In the rising and falling of bodies, but especially of water
in pumps, over-shot mills, leaks in ships, the heights of rivers at their head
above their fall into the sea. — 16. In bellows. — 17. In the prices of several com-
modities, as masts, diamonds, large timber, amber, loadstones, &c. — 18. In
mill-dams, sea banks, and the bulwarks or walls of fortresses. — 19. In the com-
pression of wool and other elastic bodies, and of the air within diving vessels,
as also in the effects of screw-presses upon several materials.

Having thus enumerated his several instances, wheren duplicate and sub-
duplicate proportion is of great importance, he explains what he understands by
every material word he uses in this discourse ; such as matter, body, figure, place,
motion, quantity, quality, habit, time, proportion, weight, swiftness, force, and
elasticity. This done, he makes the applications of the said proportions to each
of the respective matters just mentioned. To which he subjoins an appendix on
his new theory of elasticity mechanically explained.

The various pursuits in which Sir Wra. Petty was engaged, show that his genius was capable of any
thing to which he chose to apply it: and it is very extraordinary, that a man of so active and busy a
temper, could find time to write so many things as it appears he didj which arc even too numerous
to be more particularly noticed in this place.

174 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1674.

II. The Second Book of the Art of Metals, wherein is taught the common
way of Refining Silver by Quicksilver, with some New Rules added for the
better performance of the same : written in Spanish by Alonso Barba, and
Englished by the Right Honourable Edward Earl of Sandwich, London^ 1674,
in 8vo.

The first book of this subject was noticed in the last foregoing Number.
This second consists of 24 chapters, most of them of a practical nature; de-_
scribing the methods employed by the workmen in extracting and refining the
metal.

III. Animadversions on the First Part of the Machina Coslestis, of the de-
servedly famous astronomer Johannes Hevelius, &c. together with an Explica-
tion of some Instruments, made by Robert Hook, P. of Geom. in Gresh. Col.
and F. R. S. London, 1674.

This piece consists, as the title intimates, of two main parts. The one repre--
sents the author's thoughts of the astronomical organography of the excellent
Hevelius, both examining his, and Tycho Brahe's instruments, and undertaking
to evince, that if they had made use of telescopical sights, their observations
might have been much more exact than they are; forasmuch as, in the author's
opinion, an instrument of 3 feet radius with telescopes, will do more than one
of 60 feet radius with common sights. The other describes an instrument for
taking all sorts of angles and distances in the heavens, which, if increased in
bulk, is capable, Mr. Hook says, of as great accuracy, as the atmosphere will
ever permit celestial observations to be made. Its perfection he places in these
seven particulars : 1 . In the sights ; which are such, as may be made to discover
the minutest part discoverable in an object, not at all straining the eye, and fit
for all eyes. 2. In the divisions; which are such, as will distinguish the angle
as minutely as the sights will distinguish the parts or objects, and that even to
seconds. 3. In such a contrivance of the sights, that with one glance of the
eye, both the objects, though a semi-circle distant, are at once distinguished
and seen together. 4. In the method of setting it exactly perpendicular to a
second if need be. 5. In its fixation and motion; it being so fixed and moved,
that if once set to the objects, it continues to move along with them, as long as
it is necessary to continue, or be very certain of any observation. 6. In its
being to be made and adjusted without difficulty, and not to be put out of order
without design ; as also in its great easiness of being rectified and again adjusted,
7. In its being not very chargeable.

All these perfections the author explains, and endeavours to make good, by
describing and delineating this instrument and all the parts thereof, and endea-
vouring to obviate such exceptions as he foresaw might be made against it.

TOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 175

To all which he annexes occasionally something that relates to the priority of
the invention of the circular pendulum ; and likewise a description of a wheel-
work, which, he says, may be called the perfection of such work, having the
perfectest idea, he thinks, that toothed wheel-work is capable of performing the
same effect, as if the wheel and pinion had an indefinite number of teeth.
Which done, he describes the frame for keeping the instrument, which is the
main argument of this book, in its perpendicularity, and yet always in the azi-
muth of the celestial object ; with a digression of the great use of this principle
in dialing, equaling time, clock-work, &c.

He mentions also a mechanical way he has, of calculating and performing
arithmetical operations, much quicker and more certainly, than can be done by
the help of logarithms.

He concludes the whole by showing many of the particular uses of this new
quadrant, as — 1. For measuring the refraction of the air. 2. For regulating the
places of the fixed stars and of the planets. 3. For stating the latitude of places.
4. For examining the influences of the planets on the earth. 5. For measuring
the quantity of a degree upon the earth. 6. For measuring seen distances.
7. For levelling. 8. For taking the diameters of the sun, moon, and other
planets. Where, by the by, are mentioned two other instruments, one for
taking diameters to seconds; the other for looking on the body of the sun
without injury to the eyes.

^ Letter of the Learned Franc. Linus, to a Friend in London, animadverting upon
Mr. Isaac Newton^ s Theory of Light and 'Colours. N° 110, p. 217.

Honoured Sir. — Understanding that things of the nature I now write are
always welcome to you, from what hand soever they come, I thought good to
mention, that perusing lately the Phil. Trans, to see what I could find therein,
in order to a little treatise of optics I have in hand ; I lighted, in p. 3075, upon a
letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, wherein he speaks of an experiment he tried, by
letting the sun beams through a little hole into a dark chamber; which
passing through a glass prism to the opposite wall, exhibited there a spectrum
of divers colours, but in a form much more long than broad; whereas according
to the received laws of refraction, it should rather have appeared in a circular
form. Whereupon conceiving a defect in those usual laws of refraction, he
frames his new theory of light, giving to several rays several refrangibilities,
without respect to their angles of incidence, &c.

Truly Sir, I doubt not of what this learned author here affirms ; and have
myself sometimes in like circumstances observed a similar difference between the

176 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

length and breadth of this coloured spectrum ; but never found it so when the
sky was clear and free from clouds near the sun ; but then only appeared this
difference of length and breadth, when the sun either shined through a white
cloud, or enlightened some such clouds near unto it. And then indeed it was
no marvel the said spectrum should be longer than broad; since the cloud or
clouds so enlightened, were in order to those colours like to a great sun, making
a far greater angle of intersection in the said hole, than the true rays of the sun
make; and therefore are able to enlighten the whole length of the prism, and
not some small part of it only, as we see enlightened by the true sun beams
coming through the same little hole. And this we behold also in the true sun
beams when they enlighten the whole prism : for although in a clear heaven,
the rays of the sun passing through the said hole, never make a spectrum longer
than broad, because they then occupy but a small part of the prism; yet if the
hole be so much larger as to enlighten the whole prism, you shall presently see
the length of the spectrum much exceed its breadth; which excess will be always
so much the greater, as the length of the prism exceeds its breadth. From
whence I conclude, that the spectrum, this learned author saw much longer
than broad, was not effected by the true sun beams, but by rays proceeding
from some bright cloud as is said; and by consequence, that the theory of light
grounded on that experiment cannot subsist.

What I have here said needs no other confirmation than mere experience,
which any one may quickly try; neither have I only tried the same on this occa-
sion, but near 30 years ago showed the same, together with divers other expe-
riments of light, to that worthy promoter of experimental philosophy. Sir Kenelm
Digby, who coming into these parts to take the spa waters, resorted oftentimes
to my darkened chamber, to see those various pha^nomena of light made by
divers refractions and reflexions, and took notes upon them ; which industry if
they also had used, who endeavour to explicate the aforesaid difference between
the length and breadth of this coloured spectrum, by the received laws of re-
fraction, would never have taken so impossible a task in hand.

The rest is, honoured sir, that it is far from my intent, that the mistake here
mentioned do any way derogate from that learned person: which truly might
have happened to myself, if at my first trial thereof, the sun had been in a
white cloud, as it seems, it happened to him. Wherefore ceasing further to
trouble you, I rest, yours to command, Francis Linus.

October 6, l674.

j4n Answer to this Letter.
Sir, — ^The letter you thought fit to write by way of animadversion upon Mr.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 177

Newton's new theory of light and colours, grounded upon an experiment of
letting the sun-beams through a little hole into a dark chamber, seems to need
no other answer but this, that you would be pleased to look upon and consider
the scheme in Mr. Newton's 2d answer to P. Pardies in Numb. 85 of the Phil.
Trans, and rest assured, that the experiment, as it is represented, was tried in
clear days, and the prism placed close to the hole in the window, so that the
light had no room to diverge, and the coloured image made not parallel, as in
that conjecture, but transverse to the axis of the prism.

Extracts of Two Letters, ivrittten by Mr. Flamsteed to Mr. Collins ; tJie one of
Nov. 25, 1674, concerning an Instrument to show the moons true place to a
minute or two ; as also the PVriters design of correcting the hitherto assigned
Motions of the Sun, The other of Dec. 14, 1674, on the necessity of making
New Solar Numbers, together with an Expedient for making trial, whether the
Refractions in Signor CassinCs Tables are Just. London, Dec, 17, 1674.
N°110, p. 219.

The Extract of the first Letter.

After my return to Derby, I perused Mr. Street's discourse, and considered
the contrivance of his moon-wiser ; which, though he affirms in the conclusion
of his little tract, to be different from Mr. Horrox's ; yet I can assure him, that
for the motion of longitude it is the^-ery same, and no other than what is taken
from my explication ; save that, where I thought the manner of librating the
apogaeum was obvious from the calculation, and needed not to be explained, he
has shown how to take it in the libratory circle. As for his motion of latitude,
indeed that is a little different ; but I can again assure him, not much better
than Mr. Horrox's, to whom we are indebted for this contrivance. Mean-
time, when he has done what he can, it will not show the true place to half a
degree.

I have therefore thought of another contrivance, not so large nor trouble-
some as his, that shall show the moon's true place to a minute or two,
without error, and with an instrument no larger than his, to less than a single
minute.

And because I find, by correcting the sun's motions by Signor Cassini's obser-
vations, that his inequalities are 5 minutes less in his mean distance ; and that
the motion of latitude needs correction ; I shall amend both, as I think and find
fit, in this instrument ; which with the place and latitudes will give the moon's
semi-diameters and parallaxes to a second.

TOL. II. A A

178 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I675.

The Extract of the other Letter.

I think I have been since my last a little better employed than before. I found
it necessary to make new solar numbers, because in my old I had neglected to
apply refractions in all the altitudes above 30 degrees; wherein yet reason and
some little experience has showed me they are not insensible. I found Signor
Cassini's observations, which I took from Ricciolus's Astronomia Reformata,
much more accurate than Tycho's, and therefore sought out numbers that
might answer them. The apogaeum I found it necessary to promote 44 minutes;
so that anno ineunte l655, it might be in 25 7° 30' O'' ; and to make the great-
est equation only 1° 54' IS*^'; whereby I found, the phsenomena would be
answered much more accurately than I expected, and as near, all things con-
sidered, as I could desire.

But still I was uncertain whether the refractions in the said Cassini's Tables
were just measures or not; and I had no conveniences for making trial. At last
I thought on this expedient, which fully satisfied me; viz.

I considered that if some of those observations of the distances of 9 from
the O by day, the stars in the night preceding or following, were skilfully
examined, they might show me the true quantity of the equations of the sun's
orb, or rather the difference of his mean and equal motion. I turned over his
progymnasmata, and pitched on two. The first made anno 1582, the 5th of
March, hor. 4. 42', and hor. 7. 12' p. m. ; whereby I found the 0 at hor. 4. 42'
was 94° 47' in antecedence of the lucida calcis H • The second made anno
]585, the 15th Sept. hor. 5. 15', and hor. 6. 55' mane. Where from applying
and considering the refractions in both, I found the sun at hor. 6. 55' to be 74°
30' in consequence of the lower head of n • The difference of longitude
between these two stars is 17° SQ': and therefore now the sun in consequence
of the lucida calcis n 92° 29'. So that the sun's apparent motion between the
year 1582, the 5th of March at hor. 4. 42', and the year 1585, the 15th of Sept.
at hor. 6. 55' mane (besides the whole revolutions) was 187° 16': but the mean
motion is 191° 2'; greater than the apparent by 3° 46': which parted in pro-
portion to the equation of the earth's motion, collected for those times from my
new tables, gives the greatest equation of the orb, 1° 54' 1 5" ; consenting, to
my wonder, without any wresting of the observations, with that which I dedu-
ced from Cassini's correct meridional altitudes.

I had not had time to examine any of those others he has related ; nor
indeed are they any ways convenient : but by this that I have done you may
see, that if once we get instruments to our purpose, that then it will not be
difficult to correct the sun's motions, without the consideration of the meri-

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 17^

dional altitudes, in which 24 seconds error gives the place above one minute
amiss.

At present I use tables for the sun's motion, grounded on this equation,
which is less than Tycho's by no less than g minutes ; which must needs cause
great alterations in our numbers for all the other planets ; in correcting of
which, I shall employ some of those minutes I can spare from my more neces-
sary studies, and have hopes of good success.

Tycho's great equation made him commit no small errors, and put him upon
strange shifts to hide and salve them. All his observations of the planets in
their oppositions to the sun, are to be corrected, before we may attempt to repre-
sent them by numbers : for his errors in the sun's place made him err some-
times 5 or 6 hours in the time of the opposition, which must be reformed.

And that I may perform my discourse of the parallax of Mars observed, I shall
fall upon it at my spare hours after Christmas.

Some Observations and Experiments by Mr. Martin Lister. N** 110, p. 221.
I. Of the Efflorescence of certain Mineral Glebes.

I keep by me certain large pieces of crude alum-mines, such as they were taken
out of the rock. I had also in the same cabinet like pieces of the ordinary
fire stone or marcasite of the coal-pits, which here we call brass lumps. In pro-
cess of time both these glebes shot forth tufts of long and slender fibres or
threads ; some of them half an inch long, bended and curled like hairs. In both
these glebes these tufts were in some measure transparent and crystalline.
These tufts did as often repullulate as they were struck and wiped clean off. —
Herein these fibres differed in taste; the aluminous very alumy and pleasantly
pungent; the vitriolic styptic and odious: again, the alum ones being dissolved
in fair water, raised a small ebullition ; whereas the vitriolic fibres dissolved
quietly. The alum fibres were generally smaller, and more opake, snow-like;
the vitriolic larger, many fibres equalling a horse-hair in thickness, and more
crystalline. The water wherein the alum-fibres were dissolved, gave no red
tincture with gall ; not by all the means I could devise to assist them ; whatever
has, and that with great confidence, been said to the contrary, by some of the
writers of our Yorkshire spaws; the vitriolic immediately gave a purple tincture
with gall.

Having laid pieces of the same marcasite in a cellar, they were in a few months
covered over with green copperas, which was these fibres shot and again dis-
solved by the moist air, doddered and run together. Exposing other pieces of
the same vitriolic glebe in my window, where the sun came, they were covered

A A2

180 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

over with a white farinaceous matter, that is, with these fibres calcined by the
rays of the sun and warm air beating upon them. Of what figure these fibres-
Were, whether round or angular, I could not well discern. But I take these
fibrous and thread-like shootings of alum and vitriol to be most genuine and
natural ; and their angular shootings, after solution, into cubes and rhomboides,
to be forced and accidental; salts of very different natures, as well vegetable as
fossil, by a like process in crystallizing of them, being observed to shoot into
like figures. But this is not my purpose at this time.

II. Of an Odd Figured Iris. See Jig. 3 and 4, pi. 7.

I have not observed any rock or sort of stone, whether metalline or more
common, which has not its different sort of spar, shot in some part or other of
its bed or seams. And these spars differ not only in their colours and other
accidents, but eminently too in their figure. To pass by divers which I have
collected, I shall describe one of a very curious figure, and which, though very
common in our blue lime-stone rocks, out of which plenty of lead ore is gotten,
yet is not, that I know of, mentioned by any author. These crystals are mostly
of a black water, like the black flint in chalk-hills; but there are of them, which
have a purplish or amethystine colour; and some there are as clear as crystal.
They adhere to the seams of the rock, whether between bed and bed, or where-
ever there are cross and oblique veins through the very substance of the bed.
The smaller the veins the less the Iris. Some are as small as wheat corns, and
others a hundred times larger. They shoot from both sides of the seam, and
mutually receive one another. They are figured thus, viz. a column of six
planes very unequal as to breadth ; the end adhering to the rock is always rug-
ged, as a thing broken off; the other end of the column consists of three quin-
angular planes, very little raised in the middle: these planes too are very unequal.
However they may be straightened and compressed in their shooting, yet the num-
ber of planes mentioned both of the column and top is most certain. The places
where infinite of them may be had, are llainsborough Scar on the Kibble; also in
a stone- quarry near Eshton Tarne, in Craven.

III. Glossopetra tricuspis non-serrata. Fig. 1 and 2.

Mr. Ray, in his travels, has these words concerning the Glossopetrae, p. 115.
" Of the Glossopetrae, I have not yet heard that there have been any. found in
England ; which I do not a little wonder at, there being sharks frequently taken
upon our coasts." I have had out of the isle of Sheppey, in the river of Thames,
very sharks teeth dug up there ; which could not be said to be petrified ; though

TOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 181

as to the colour, they were somewhat gilded with a vitriolic tarnish at first
receiving them ; but they were white, and in a short time came to their natural
colour.

In the stone- quarries in Hinderskelf-park, near Malton, I had this stone,
(fig. l)the greatest rarity of this kind I ever met with, and which I took out
of the rock there myself. It is a fair glossopetra with 3 points, of a black liver
colour and smooth ; its edges are not serrated; its basis is, like the true teeth,
of a rugged substance; it is carved round the basis with embossed work; it has
certain eminent ridges or lines like rays drawn from the basis to each point.

IV. Of certain Dactyli Idem, or the true Lapides Jicdaicij found in England.

Fig. 5.

The stones called Dactyli Idaei, and Lapides Judaici, are brought over to us
from beyond seas in divers shapes, and some of them are described in authors.
We have plenty of them for kind in these parts, as in the stone-quarries at
Newton, near Hemsley, and at Hellingly, by Malton. There is some variety
in the figure of them here also ; but the most common one in these rocks is
after the fashion of a date-stone, round and long, about an inch, and sometimes
longer. They are a little swelled in the middle, and narrower towards each
,end : they are channelled the length way, and on the ridges knotted or purled
all over with small knots, set in a quincunx order. The inward substance is a
white opaque spar, and breaks smooth like a flint ; not at all hollow in the
middle, as are the Belemnites.

V. Of the Electrical Power of Stones in relation to a Vegetable Rosin.

Having occasion, in July, to view certain fossils, which I had disposed of into
divers drawers in a cabinet, made of Barbadoes cedar, I observed many of the
stones to be thickly covered over with a liquid rosin, like Venice turpentine.
Examining further, there was not a drawer, wherein there was not some more
some fewer stones thus drenched. That this could be no mistake, as from
dropping, the bottoms of the drawers are of oak. Again, many stones which
were wrapped up in papers, were also wholly infected and covered with this rosin.
Besides, after diligent search, there appeared no manner of exudation in any
part of the cabinet. • Two things I thought very remarkable : 1 . That of the
many sorts of stones I had there, divers escaped, but not any of the haematites
kind ; having therein manganese, shistus, botryades, &c. which were all deeply
concerned. 2. That among perhaps 500 pieces of the astroites, here and there
one or two in an apartment, and sometimes more, were seised, and the rest dry ;

182 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1675.

as it fares with people in the time of the plague in one and the same house. I
further observed, that stones of a soft and open grain, as well as those of a hard
and polished superficies, were affected alike. It is certain, that the whole body
of the turpentine of the cedar-wood was carried forth into the air, and floating
therein was again condensed into its own proper form upon these stones.
This makes it more than probable, that odoriferous bodies emit and spend
their very substance. Thus camphire is said, if not well secured, totally to
flyaway. Again, it is hence evident, that there is great difference between
the distillation of vegetable juices, and the emission of effluviums, or this
natural distillation ; that really separating and dividing the substance into
diff'erent parts; but this carrying out the whole intirely and unaltered in its
nature.

VI. Of the Floiver and Seed of Mushrooms.

The general and received opinion of botanists, concerning mushrooms, is that
which Caspar Bauhinus, in his Pinax, expresses in these few words, viz. " Fungi
neque plantae, neque radices, neque flores ; ' neque semina sunt ; sed nihil aliud
qu^m terrae, arborum, lignorum putridorum, aliarumque, putrilaginum humidi-
tates superfluas." I am of opinion, that they are plants of their own kind, and
have more than a chance original. We will instance in that species, called Fun-
gus porosus crassus magnus I. B. The texture of the gills is like a paper pricked
full of pin-holes. In August this is very frequent under hedges, and in the
middle of the moors in many places of this country. It seems to me, and no
doubt it will to any person that shall well examine it, that the gills of this mush-
room are the very flower and seed of this plant. * When it is ripe, the gills here
are easily separable from the rest of the head : each seed is distinct from other,
and has its impression in the head of the mushroom, just as the seeds of an
artichoke has in the bottom of it. The larger end of the seed is full and round,
and they are disposed in a spiral order, just as those of the artichoke. The like
we think of all other mushrooms, however differently figured.

And if it shall happen, when sown, that these will not produce their kind,
but be steril ; it is no strange thing among plants, there being whole genuses of
plants that come up, and flower, and seed, and yet their seed was never known
to produce plants of their kind, being naturally steril, and a volatile dust, as all
the orchides or bee-flowers. It may be further observed concerning this mush-
room, that when fresh gathered, it is of a buff colour on both sides ; and yet,

* This conjecture respecting the existence of the seeds of the fungi or mushrooms in their gills,
has been .verified by the late beautiful discoveries of Hedwig.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 83-

ciit through the middle, it will in a moment change from a pale yellow to a deep
purple or blue, and stain linen accordingly. A drop of the juice, leisurely
squeezed out, holding it between your eye and the light, will change through
all the colours of the rainbow, in the very time of its falling, and fix in a purple,
as it does in the springing out of its veins.

VII. Of the speedy vitrifying of the whole Body of Antimony hy Cauh.

The several vitrifications of antimony are either opake or transparent. To
the first kind I shall add one, which is in itself very curious, and has these
advantages above the rest, that it is done with great ease and speed; and by
it I have performed some things on minerals and metals, which with crude
antimony alone I could not effect. Take of antimony one pound ; flux it
clear : have an ounce or two of the cauk-stone, described below, in a lump
red-hot in readiness. Put it into the crucible to the antimony ; continue the
flux a few minutes: cast it into a clean and not greased mortar, decanting the
melted liquor from the cauk. This process gives us above ]5 ounces of
vitrum of antimony, like polished steel, and as bright as the most refined
quicksilver. The cauk seems not to be diminished in its weight, but rather
increased ; nor will be brought to incorporate with the antimony, though
fluxed in a strong blast.

This cauk-stone is a very odd mineral, and I always looked upon it to be
much akin to the white milky mineral juices, I formerly sent you a specimen
of: and this experiment is demonstrative that I was not mistaken; for the
milky juice of the lead mines vitrifies the whole body of antimony in like
manner. That this vitrification is from the proper nature of cauk I little
doubt ; for I could never light upon any one mineral substance, which had
any such effect upon antimony; and I have tried very many, as lapis calaminaris,
stone sulphur, or sulphur vivum, galactites, sulphur marcasite, alum-glebe,
divers spars, &c. Cauk is a ponderous white stone, found in the lead-mines;
it will draw a white line like chalk or the galactites: and though it be so free,
it is more firm, and has a smooth and shining grain, spar-like, yet not at all
transparent. — [Cauk, or cawk, is a sulphate of barytes.]

An Account of some Books. N° 110, p. 226.

I. Tracts containing — 1. Suspicions about some Hidden Qualities of the Air,
with an Appendix touching Celestial Magnets, and some other Particulars. —
2. Animadversions upon Mr. Hobbes's Problemata de Vacuo. — 3. A Discourse of
the Cause of Attraction by Suction. By the Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq. F. R. S.
London, l674, in 8vo.

184 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

In the first of these tracts, the author, passing by those obvious qualities of
the air, heat, cold, dryness and moisture, and such others, as are now also com-
monly known, I mean gravity, elasticity, refractiveness, &c. inquires into, and
delivers his conjectures about, some yet more latent ones. And the chief ac-
count on which the air may be thought endowed with hidden qualities, he
esteems to be those exotic effluvia, that probably proceed partly from beneath the
surface of the earth, partly from the celestial bodies. Towards the end of the first
part, occasion is taken, in a peculiar discourse, to inquire, whether, as it is thought
no impossible thing that nature should make, so it may not be an unpracticable
or hopeless thing that men should find, or art should prepare, useful magnets
of the exotic effluvia of the lower region of the earth, or the upper of the
world ?— To this part are subjoined some observations on the growth of metals ;
also some new experiments about the preservation of bodies in vacuo Boyliano,
or with exclusion of the air; tried on bread, milk, cream, cheese, roasted meat,
blood, violets, July flowers, roses, strawberries, blackberries, beer. All which,
except the milk, cream, and blood, remained good, and without any notable
alteration, after a considerable time. — The second tract of this book being
written dialogue-wise, examines Mr. Hobbes's arguments for the absolute pleni-
tude of the world, and shows them to be far short of cogency. — ^The third exa-
mines the cause of suction ; and having rejected fuga vacui to be the cause of
the raising of liquors in suction, and declared also, that he cannot acquiesce in
their theory, who refer it to the action of the sucker's thorax : which done, he
makes out, by experiments, his thoughts concerning that cause; which thoughts
amount to this, that liquors are upon suction raised into pipes or other hollow
bodies, when and so far as there is a less pressure on the surface of the liquor in
the cavity, than on the surface of the external liquor that surrounds the hollow
body; whether that pressure on those parts of the external liquor, that are from
time to time impelled up into the orifice of the pipe, proceed from the weight
of the atmosphere, or the propagated compression or impulse of some part of
the air, or the spring of the air, or some other cause, as the pressure of some
other body quite distinct from air.

II. R. P. Claudii Franc. Millet de Chales* e S.J. Cursus seu Mundus
Mathematicus, universam Mathesin tribus Tomis complectens. Lug. 1674,
in folio.

The first volume of this body of mathematics, comprehends eight books of

* This learned mathematician was born of a noble family at Chambery, 162I. He was of the
Society of tlie Jesuits, and professed mathematics with reputation at Marseilles, Lyons, Paris, and
Turin, where he died l678. The best edition of his course of mathematics, is that of I690, in 4
volumes. The treatise of navigation is a part highly esteemed.

VOL. IX.] PHUOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 185

Euclid; arithmetic; Theodosius's spherics; trigonometry; practical geometry;
mechanics; statics; universal geography; a treatise on the magnet; architecture,
and carpentry. — In the second are contained these treatises, viz. of the section
of stones, of military architecture, of hydrostatics, fountains and rivers, hy-
draulics, navigation, optics, perspective, catoptrics, and dioptrics. — The third
contains his treatises ahout music, pyrotechny, astrolabes, dialling, astronomy,
calendars, astrology, algebra, the method of indivisibles, and conic sections.

III. The Sphere of M. Manilius made an English Poem, with Annotations,
and an Astronomical Appendix. By Edward Sherburne,* Esq. Lond. 1675,
in folio.

In this ancient and poetical treatise on astronomy, many particulars occur,
touching the nature of the heavens and the celestial bodies, that agree with the
assertions of some of the most eminent modern astronomers, viz. the fluidity of
the heavens, against the Aristotelean solidity of the orbs ; the position of the
fixed stars, not in the same concave superficies of the heavens, equally distant
from the centre of the universe, but at unequal distances in the ethereal region,
some higher, some lower, whence the difference of their apparent magnitudes
and splendour ; the fiery nature and substance of the fixed stars, and in conse-
quence their being endowed with native lustre, and making so many suns like
to our sun ; and the Galaxy's being an aggregate of numberless small stars.

Of the parts of this poem, their distribution and order, and of the inter-
preter's endeavours in explaining it, both in his learned notes and considerable
appendix, he observes, that the poem begins with a succinct indication of the
origin and progress of arts and sciences, particularly of astronomy; of which
last, besides what the translator has noted in his marginal illustrations, he has
added for the satisfaction of the more curious, a compendious history, continued
down to the age of Manilius ; with a very instructive catalogue of the most
eminent astronomers, from the first parent of all arts, and mankind itself, to
this present time. That it is continued on with a description of the mundane
system, and of the celestial signs and constellations ; the former of which our
interpreter has explained according to the various hypotheses, both ancient and
modern; the latter he has described by the number of the stars that compose
them ; their several denominations in most of the learned languages, and as
they are distinguished into profane and sacred figures, according to the differ-
ent uranography of the ancient Ethnics, and some late Christian astronomers.

* This learned writer was born in London, in 1616, and became commissary general of the
artillery, in the reign of king Charles the 1st. Continuing true to the royal cause, at the restoration
he received a pension and the honour of knighthood : and he died in 1702. He pubHshed translations-
of Seneca's tragedies, and a collection cf poems, besides the Sphere of Manilius, above noticed.

VOL. II. B B

186 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

That the third part of this poem contains a description of the celestial circles;
for the better understanding of which, besides what is explained in the marginal
notes, our author has added a cosmographical astronomical synopsis, for the
most part according to Mersenne, and thereto annexed the 12 propositions of
Theodosius de Habitationibus, in English. And, as Manilius has touched on
the fiery nature of the fixed stars, his interpreter has here made some further
and more curious inquiries touching their substance, light, colour, scintillation,
number, figure, magnitude, place, and distance from the earth, or rather the
sun. In the next place, the planets are enumerated ; whose several denomina-
tions, by which they were known and distinguished by the ancients, the inter-
preter has given in his notes ; further enlarging about the nature and substance
of the sun, his maculae and faculae ; also of his vertiginous motion, magnitude,
and distance; as also of the moon and her spots, adding the selenographic
schemes of Hevelius and Grimaldi, with their respective nomenclatures; and
exhibiting a brief account of the nature, substance, structure, figure, magni-
tude and distance of the other planets. And, because this poem concludes with
a corollary on fiery meteors and comets, our author has in part explained them
also in his notes ; more fully discoursing, in the appendix, of their names,
kinds, and several species, their matter, place, and efficient causes; and adding
in the close a chronological historical table of the most notable comets, that
have appeared since the flood to this present.

Nor has our interpreter omitted to inform his reader touching Manilius's life,
country, quality, studies, writings, &c. in the doing of which, as well as in
composing this whole work, he has given sufficient proof of his more than
ordinary acquaintance both with ancient and modern writings.

IV. Avona, or a Transient View of the Benefit of making the Rivers of this
Kingdom Navigable ; communicated by Letter to a Friend at London ; by R. S.
London, 1675, in 8vo.

This letter, it seems, was occasioned by observing the situation of the city of
Salisbury on the Avon, and the consequence of opening that river to the said
city. The author shows the manifold benefits which will redound to the rich
and poor, by making our rivers navigable, to promote the wealth, navigation,
commerce, and strength of the island ; and to advance ingenious arts and use-
ful knowledge, inventions, accommodations, and discoveries.

V. An Essay to facilitate the Education of Youth, by bringing down the
Rudiments of Grammar to the Sense of Seeing; which ought to be improved by
Syncrisis, fitted to Children's Capacities, for the learning, especially of the Eng-
lish, Latin and Greek Tongues: in Three Parts; an Accidence, a Middle

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

187

VOL. IX.]

Grammar, and a Critical or Idiomatical Grammar. By Mr. Lewis of Totten-
ham, in 8vo. London.

An Account of the Observations in London and Derby, made by Mr. Hook,
Mr. Flamsteed, and others, concerning the late Eclipse of the Moon, of
Jan. 1, l67i. N°ll], p. 237.

Beginning of the true shadow. .

The immersion

Emersion . . ^

End of the true shadow

At Derby, which differs from London in longitude 5 min. Mr. Flamsteed
observed the beginning of the entrance of the true shadow 5h. IQm. — The
penubra was seen in London to continue near half an hour, before it wholly
quitted the body of the moon.

Observ^edat
London.

By Flamsteed's
Tables,

h. m.

h.

m. s.

5 22

5

32 58

f) JQ

6

32 10

7 58

8

7 50

8 58

9

7 2

Observed by M, Bulliald at Paris.

Beginning; the altitude of Capella being

Immersion j altitude of Capella

Emersion; altitude of Capella of Pollux
End ; altitude of Sirius

52 26

62 8

43 46

20 47

m.

s.

By a Pendu-
lum Clock.

h.

h. m. s.

5

32

29

5 32 50

6

33

3

6 35 46

8

9

30

8 8 0

9

10

0

9 9 40

By the Phllo.

laic Tables.

ii. m. s.

5 44 27

6 46 24

8 24 24

9 26 21

Account of Iceland, by B. D. Paul Biornon. Translated from the Latin by the

Editor. N° 111, p. 238.

The air of Iceland is very healthy all the year round. The diseases the in-
habitants are most subject to, are the colic and leprosy. They have no physi-
cians ; only two or three surgeons that furnish plaisters for the di-essing of
wounds. In the air iron rusts very soon. — ^The changes of the weather are un-
certain, nor do they fall out according to the four seasons of the year. Some-
times it snows as well as hails in the middle of summer; and the winds blow now
and then very furiously at the same season. — ^The frost penetrates at most four
feet into the earth. Spirit of wine and oil escape freezing; much more quick-
silver. Fish are preserved from putrefaction by burying them in the snow.
Frozen bodies swell, and are changed both in taste and colour. The figure of

B B 2

]88 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

the snow is various, as is also its size. Hail is roundish; the largest is only of
the size of hail-shot, that we kill fowl with.

Of meteors, I have observed the ignis lambens, the draco volans, and
frequently two mock suns, with three rainbows passing through them and the
true sun. There are no stated winds. — ^The depth of our sea is various: the
greatest about the coast is 80 fathoms. The sea water in clear nights, being
struck with oars, shines like fire bursting out of a furnace. The tides observe
the motion of the moon. The sea swells about the moon's rising and setting;
and it falls when she is to the south and north. The ordinary highest tides are
not above ] 6 feet, except in autumn, when it is very tempestuous, and then they
rise sometimes to 20 feet. About the full and new moon are the highest
spring tides, and the lowest neap tides. — ^There are many lakes, and most of
them on high mountains, which are stored with salmon. Innumerable springs
gush out of rocks. Also many hot springs; of which, some are so hot, that in
a quarter of an hour they will sufficiently boil great pieces of beef; which is
done in this manner: they hang the kettles with cold water over them, in which
they put the meat to be boiled; for fear of either burning or throwing up the
meat by the fervent and vehement ebullition of the hot waters. These waters
harden and petrify about the brims of the springs. The highest hills are not
above a quarter of a German mile high. There is a whole ridge of mountains
through all the island. The people live only in the valleys, and towards the
sea shore. There are other volcanoes besides Hecla; and all covered with snow.
— The declination of the load-stone is here to the north-west; (but how much
he notes not.) — ^The soil is clayey for the most part; in some places sandy; no
where chalky. No tillage is used; all their commodities being imported; of
which the chief are, barley, wheat, linen, iron. — ^They have great numbers of
various birds in summer. In winter, ravens, eagles, wild ducks, swans. They
are pretty well stored with horses, oxen, cows, sheep, dogs, and in some places
with hens. There are foxes in the mountains ; and the Greenland ice brings
with it those terrible guests, the bears. The oxen and cows live in winter on
hay ; but the horses and sheep make a shift to live on the grass under the snow,
and coralline moss called muscus marinus. — There are no minerals that are
known; only store of brimstone, of which they export every year two ships
lading.— In the year l642, on the 13th of May, all the sea which beats on the
promontories was for two days so pellucid and shining, that shells and the
smallest stones could be seen at- the bottom, where the sea was 40 fathoms
deep.*

* For more particulars concerning this northern part of Europe the reader is referred to Von
Troil's Letters on Iceland, published in 1780. The water of the hot- springs was analysed by the

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 18^

Divers Rural cmd Economical Inquiries, recommended to Observation and Trial.

N° 111, p. 240.

Of no use at the present time.

Extract of a Letter of Dr. J. TVallis, to M. Hevelius, from Oxford, December
31, 1673; gratulatory for his Organographia ; and particularly concerning
Divisions by Diagonals, lately inserted in Mr. Hook's Animadversions on the
first Part of the Machina Ccelestis of Hevelius ; but so faultily there printed,
that it teas thought fit, at the Author s desire, to be here done more correctly.
Translated from the Latin. N° 111, p. 243.

After returning thanks to M. Hevelius for the present of his book Organo-
graphia, or description of his astronomical apparatus, and some handsome com-
pliments in commendation of the book, the instruments, and of the ingenious
astronomical labours of the author. Dr. Wallis then adverts to some certain
parts of it, particularly the divisions on instruments by diagonals. Without
dwelling on particulars, says Dr. Wallis, I may yet briefly mention one thing,
viz. the divisions by diagonal lines, intersecting the concentric circles on the
limb of the instrument. You retain that method of dividing, long since used,
and very deservedly, and also those concentric circles disposed at equal distances
from each other. But although this might occasion certain small, and even
larger errors on broad limbs of instruments; yet in your instruments, which are
so large, and the limbs so narrow, as you justly observe, this cannot cause any
difference at all that can be sensible.

On this occasion I shall here subjoin what formerly, about the year 165O or
1651, occurred to me on this matter; and which I now find among my
memorandums. Namely, if it be required thus to divide the broad limb of a
smaller instrument ; to determine by trigonometrical calculation, at what dis-
tances the concentric circles ought to be drawn, so that the angles may be equal
among themselves, which are determined by the transverse intersections with
those circles.

The Division of the Arc on the Limh of a Quadrant, or other such like Instrument,
by Concentric Circles, and a right Diagonal Line.

Let the breadth of the limb RL = / (fig. 6, pi. 7); the radius of the inner
circle AR = r ; that of the exterior AZ = AL = / -f- r = z; containing the
angle R AZ = A, to be divided into any number of equal parts, the number of

late Dr. Black of Edinburgh, and among other ingredients was found to hold in solution siliceous
earth.

igo

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

[anno 1675.

which is n, by the right lines a, b, c, &c. (whose lengths are required) making
with the rectilineal diagonal RZ the angles «, |3, y, &c. Then RAa =

^A, RAb = ^A, RAC=^A, &c. Let ARZ =/), and AZR = ^. Having
given therefore the legs r, z, with the contained angle A, and thence the sum
of the remaining angles p -\- q, the rest will be founds p obtuse, and q acute :
for z + r : z - r : : tang. t±l : tang. ^; and^ + ^ = j^. Then,

knowing the angles p and - A, and thence the remaining angle a, with the in-
cluded side r; the side a will thence be found ; viz. sin. a : r : : sin. p : a. And,
in like manner, having known p and - A; p and - A; p and - A; &c.,
there will be had b; c; d; &c.

For example — Let r = 1 ; / = 0.2; z = 1.2; A = lO'. Therefore p-\- qz=.

179° 50' ; and ^-—^ = 89° 55'. Then, as z + r = 2.2 : z — r = 0.2 : :
tang. ^^—^ = 687.5488693 : 62.5044427 = tang. ^-~; to which answers the

angle 89° 5' O" M'" nearly. Therefore ^^ + ^^ =/) = 179° o' o" \f"

nearly; the sine of which, or of 0° 59' 59" 43'", is 0.017451 1. Then, cutting
the angle A into 10 parts, each of them of l', there will then be found «, b^ c, r/,
€>f, Si K ii thus, as

Sin. » (0° 58' 59" 43'") 0.017l603 : r = 1

Sin. /3 (0 57 59 43 ) 0.0168694 : r = 1

Sin. y (0 56 59 43 ) 0.0165780 : r = 1

Sin. ^ (0 55 59 43 ) 0.0162877 : &c.

Sin. i (0 54 59 43 ) 0.0159969 :

Sin. C (0 53 59 43 ) 0.0157060 ;

Sin. » (0 52 59 43 ) 0.0154152 :

Sin. 6 (0 51 59 43 ) 0.0151243 :

Sin. * (0 50 59 43 ) 0.0148335 :

S'm.p = 0.0174511
Sin. p = 0.0174511
Sin. ^ = 0.0174511
&c.

1.00000 = r
1.01694 = a
1.03448 = b
1.05264 = c
1.07144 = d
1.09091 = e
1.11110 =/
1.13206 =g
1.15383 = h
1.17647 = i
1.20000 = z

Difs.
1694
1754
I816
1880
1547
2019
2096
1177
2264
2353

The Calculation otherwise.

Let r = 1 ; / = 0.1 ; z = 1.1 ; A = lO'. Therefore /j + q = 179° 50', and
^-^1=89° 55', whose tangent is 687-5488693. Then, as 2.1:0.1::

687.5488698 : 32.7404223-1- = tang. 88° 15' i" bf"\- = tang. ^-^. There-

fore

p + q

+

lz=p = 178° 10' 1^/57'

2 ' 2

49' 58" 2'%, the sine of which is 0.03] 9827. Therefore,

the supplement of which is 1^

Sin.

* (1°

48' 58"

2'

Sin.

^ (1

47 58

2

Sin.

y (1

45 58

2

Sin.

^(1

45 58

2

Sin.

• (1

44 58
&c.

2

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQl

1.00000 = r Qj^

"I = 316920 ) 319827 ( 1.00918 = a ^ l6

I = 314013 ) 319827 ( 1.01852 = 6 ^, 17

I = 311103 ) 319827 ( 1.02803 = c ^^^ ig

I = 308198 ) 319827 ( 1.03773 = d ^^^ 19

I = 305290 ) 319827 ( 1.047^2 = c ^^^ is

302343 ) &c. ( 1.05769 =/ ^^^ 20

29m 5 ) ( 1.06796=^ 1^27 2^

296567) (1.07843= A ^^^ 31

293660 ) ( 1.08911 = i ^^^^ 21

290752) (1.10000= A: 1089

So far my memorandum. Where we may observe two cases; viz. when the
breadth of the limb is made the 5th part, and the ] 0th part, of the shorter
radius; and the angle to be divided lO'; so far accurate according as the com-
mon trigonometrical canon is so ; and indeed the last figure ambiguous, some-
times in excess, sometimes in defect. As to the radius, I make it 1, as com-
monly I do ; not 10000000, as most others do ; by which all the multiplications
and divisions by radius are saved. Therefore the sines will be in decimal parts;
to which therefore, when necessary, I prefix ciphers, which also occupy the
unit's place of integers. In like manner are we to proceed, mutatis mutandis
when the limb of the instrument is taken in any other proportion to the length
of the radius.

But it will be more convenient, in order to avoid so often finding the pro-
portional part, that the angle p be of some convenient magnitude, to be deter-
mined by exact minutes, without the annexed seconds or thirds; and so finding
the length of the greatest radius z, in the same manner as the others a, b, c, &c.

Suppose that, as before, there be taken r = 1, and the angle A = 10', and
the angle ^ be taken, not 178° lO' \" bf'% as before found, but rather 178"*
lO', whose supplement is 1° 50', the tabular sine of which is 0.03 1 9922 ; and
the same of the «, p, y, J", &c. The sines will be had like as before, but by one
division only ; and the length of that radius z being, not precisely 3.1 as before
but nearly so, as I.09996. Then,

Sin. « = 1° 49' = 317015 ) 319922
Sin, /3 = 1 48 = 314108 ) 319922
Sin. y = 1 47 = 3112O0 ) 319922
&c. 308293 ) 319922

305385 ) &c.
302478 )
299570 )
296662 )
293755 )
290847 )

1.00000 = r ^*'

917
1.00917=. '^ 17

1.01851 = 6 052 ^«
1.02803 = c ^^ 17

m ^

588 '^

1007 ^^
20

20

1.03772 = d
1.04760 = c
1.05767 —f
1.06794 =g 1027

1.07841 = A 1047 ^^
1.08908 = i 1007 ^^
1.09996 = k 1088

= z.

192 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S,

In like manner every thing else succeeds, if, assuming the radii r, I, with the
angle A, we compute q and the intermediate radii ; or, assuming the radius /,
with the angles A, q, and compute r and the intermediate radii. But, if the
breadth of the limb be only the 30th, or 40th, or smaller part of the radius ; and
the angle to be divided be not lO', but only lO'', or even less; the differences
will be smaller than can be shown by the common trigonometrical canon,
and become quite insensible; and the concentric circles will be equidistant from
one another, as far as can be distinguished by the senses : because the lOOOdth
part of an inch, and still more the 10 thousandth or the 100 thousandth, is a
difference less than can be distinguished by sense.

^n Account of some Books. N° 111, p. 246.

I. Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Re-
surrection; by the Hon. Robert Boyle, F.R.S. London, lQ7^, in 8vo.

The noble author's design in this discourse is to show, that the philosophical
difficulties, urged against the possibility of the resurrection, are not so in-
superable, as they are by some pretended, and by others granted to be; and
hopes he has handled this subject in such a manner, as to make it appear, that
sound philosophy may furnish us with good weapons for the defence of our faith,
and that corpuscularian principles may not only be admitted without epicurean
errors, but be employed against them.

II. Waare Oeffening der Planten, door Abraham Munting, ^' M. D. and Prof.
Botanices Groningen. Printed at Amsterd. 1672, in 4to.

In this piece, the author makes it his business to describe, from his own ob-
servation and search, the nature, culture, preservation and propagation of trees,
shrubs, herbs, and flowers. Of trees thus described, there are 60 ; of shrubs
64; of herbs and flowers 449: in all 578. Of which there being many that are
exotic to Europe, the art and way of ordering them in these parts, is, among
the rest, here delivered.

Speaking of the setting of kernels and sowing of seeds, he gives this advertise-
ment, that the kernels and seeds of such trees and plants as bear their fruit
above ground, must be set or sown in the decrease of the moon; but of such as
bear their fruit under ground, as turnips, parsnips, carrots, &c. must be com-
mitted to the ground in the increase of the moon : to which he adds, if the
contrary be practised, it will be found, that those trees and plants will indeed
bear many branches and large leaves, but little, and that very small fruit.

To obtain extraordinary good, large, and beautiful apple fruit, he advises, by

* Abraham Munting, a learned botanist, was the author of various works, of which the chief is
entitled Fhytographia Curiosa. He died in tlie year l683.

VOL. IX.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1Q3

all means, to graft good grafts upon such apple stocks as are produced from the
seed, and have been deprived of their heart-root, which shoots downwards.

III. The Prevention of Poverty. Showing the Causes of the Decay of Trade,
Fall of Lands, and Want of Money: with Expedients for remedying the same,
and bringing the Kingdom to an eminent degree of Riches and Prosperity. By
Rich. Haynes, London, 1674, in 8vo.

j1 more particular Account of the last Eclipse of the Moon, as promised in our
last Number. From the French Journal des Sgavans. N** 112, p. 257.

January 11, N. S. 1675, about 5 o'clock, 12 min. in the evening, in the
Royal Observatory, M. Cassini, M. Picard, and M. Roemer, began to perceive
that the eastern part of the moon gradually lost its light ; so that at 5h. 25 m.
they saw a manifest penumbra; then at 5h. 32m. 50s. the limb over against
the spot called Hevelius grew so dark, that they all agreed that this was the true
beginning of the eclipse. They saw yet the little spot Riccioli, which disap-
peared not till 15 min. after; and so the shadow advanced from spot to
spot unto the other opposite limb of the moon, according to the regular order;
the most remarkable times and circumstances being as below ; viz. Beginning
of the eclipse at 5 h. 32m. 50s.; the total immersion 6h. 35 m. 46s ; beginning
of the emersion 8h. 8m. Os.; end of the eclipse gh. Qm. 40s. The diameter
of the moon, measured just before the eclipse, was 33' 15^'. The times were by
large pendulum watches, which were adjusted by the sun the same day, and
verified the day after ; besides, before the eclipse began, at 4h. 45m. 1 s. by the
watches, the star Capella was 45° high towards the east.

Account of the Measure of the Earth's Meridian, By M. Picard. N° 11 1, p. 261.

The sum of the whole of this account amounts to this: that M. Picard has
found 57060 toises for one degree, that is, 28 ^ leagues and 60 toises; which
being multiplied by 360, the number of the degrees, makes IO270 leagues and
1600 toises, reckoning 2000 toises to a league, or 2400 paces, 5 feet to a pace.
The method employed by him was, to measure on a plain and straight ground,
a space of 5663 toises or fathoms, to serve for the first basis to divers triangles,
by which he has concluded the length of a meridian line to be equivalent to a
degree. What is remarkable in this is, that no one ever measured so long a
basis; the greatest of the former observations having been but of 1000 toises;-
and that here have been employed, for taking the angles of position, very accu-
rate instruments, and telescopical sights, instead of common ones.

M. Picard observes, that this problem, concerning the just dimensions of the
circumference of the earth, is no new thing; but has been the inquiry of seve-
ral ages, in which princes have been curious, and learned men encouraged to the

VOL, II. C c

104 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

search and clearing of this difficulty. That for this purpose, Alniamon, an
Arabian prince, ordered experiments to be made in the plains of Sanjar; where
a station being chosen, thence two troops of horsemen set out, and pro-
ceeded opposite ways, in a straight line, till one of them had raised a degree of
latitude, and the other had depressed it ; at the end of their marches, they who
raised it, counted 56^ miles, and they who depressed it reckoned just 56 miles.
From this observation can be known but very little, because we know not of
what length these miles were. He further observes, that the ancient compu-
tations of miles for a degree ran always on the decrease; thus, Aristotle count-
ing to a degree 1111 stadia : after him Eratosthenes counted but 700 ; Possi-
donius only 666; Ptolemy but 500. Besides, the precise length of these
stadia is unknown, and that they were also different among themselves; the
stadia of Alexandria differing from those of Greece. At last Fernelius brought
it to 56,746 toises or fathoms of Paris, each of which is equal to 6 Parisian feet;
Snellius to 55,021. The method of this last M. Picard judges to be the most
ingenious ; which was by a scale or series of triangles. But in one thing he
esteems it deficient, which is, that Snellius took his objects only by common
sights, which do not so distinctly point them out.

M. Picard, in his measuring of a degree, chose a meridian, out of which he
intended to take his measure, between Sourdon in Picardy, and Malvoisin, on
the confines of Gastinois and Hurepois ; and he actually measured a way that
lay very straight, between Villejuifve and Ivoisy, viz. the line AB, (fig. 7, pi. 7);
and he found the distance between these two terms, in going forward, to be

5662 toises and 5 feet, and in coming back 5663 toises and 1 foot ; which being
measured with great exactness, he stated the distance between these two places,
in round numbers at 5663 toises. The intruments he measured with, were
pikes joined together at their ends by a screw, which measure was 4 toises lojig:
This he applied along a cord stretched horizontally, and at the end of every
such pike placed a stake, of which stakes he had 10 in all. This distance of

5663 toises was the base of the first triangle, on which the measure of all the
depending series was formed. The instrument for taking the angles was a
quadrant of 38 inches radius, furnished with telescopic sights. He takes occa-
sion, by the bye, to speak of measures in general ; and says, that a pendulum
vibrating a second of time, computed according to the mean motion of the sun,
is 36 inches and 8 ^ lines of the Paris measure. And he thinks that this mea-
sure may probably serve in all countries, because the same length of a pendulum
served for a second both at the Hague and at Paris; whence he conjectures,
the same may serve also in other latitudes. Hence he infers, that if it were
desired to constitute a universal measure, which might be common to all coun-
tries^ it might be thus made^ viz. Call this pendulum for seconds, of 36 inches

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQ5

and 8^ lines, the astronomical radius; the -j- of this radius the universal foot;
the double of which radius might be called the miiversal toise or fathom, which
would be to the Parisian toise as 881 to 864 ; the quadruple might be called the
universal perch, which is equal to the length of a pendulum for two seconds.
And the universal mile might contain 1000 of these perches.

M. Picard describes the manner of taking the distance between Sourdon and
Malvoisin, with the triangles, and the stations from whence he observed his
angles. This distance is 68,343 toises and 2 feet; and the measures of the
triangles, 1 3 in number, were as follows.

In the first triangle ABC, (fig. 7), to find the sides AC, BC.

Toises Feet

rCAB = 54° 4' 35^ Measured side AB 5663 O

Angles <ABC = 95 6 55 Hence is found AC 11012 5

CACB = 30 48 30 And BC 8954 O

In the 2d triangle, ADC, to find DC and AD.

rDAC = 77° 25' 50'^ Given AC IIOI2 5

Angles ^ADC = 55 o 10 Hence DC 13121 3

CACD = 47 34 O And AD 9922 2

In the 3d triangle, DEC, to find DE, CE.

rDEC = 74° 9' 30' The side DC 13121 3

Angles ^DCE =40 34 O Hence DE 8870 3

CCDE=65 16 30 And CE 12389 3

In the 4th triangle, DCF, to find DF.

fDCF = 113° 47' 40'^ ThesideDC 13121 3

Angles <DFC= 33 40 0 Hence DF 21658 0
CFDC = 32 32 20

In the 5 th triangle, DFG, to find DG, FG.

f DFG = 92° 5' 20'' The side DF 21658 O

Angles ^DGF = 57 34 0 Hence DG 25643 o

CGDF = 30 20 40 AndFG 12963 3

In the 6th triangle, GDE, to find GE.

The Angle GDE = 128° 9' 30^' The sides DG 25643 o

And DE 8870 3

Hence GE 31 8970 O
So then, the line of distance between Malvoisin and Sourdon being divided
into three parts, viz. EG, GI, IN, the part EG is already found, as above.
In the 7th triangle FGH, to find GH.

CFGH = 39° 51 0'/ The side FG 12963 3

Angles <FHG = 91 46 20 Hence GH 9695 0

(HFG = 48 22 30

C C 2

IQO philosophical transactions. [anno 1675.

In the 8th triangle GHI, to find GI, IH. Toises Feet

rOHI = 55° 58' O'/ The side GH 9695 O

Angles <GIH= 27 14 O Hence G I 17597 O

(lGH=96 48 O And HI* 21037 o

Thus the 2d part of the three, viz. GI, is found.

In the 9th triangle HIK, to find IK.

CHIK = 65° 4& O" The side HI* 21043 O

Angles -JhKI = 80 59 40 Hence IK* 11678 O

CKHI = 33 14 20

In the 10th triangle IKL, to find KL, IL.

fLIK = 58° 31' 50" The side IK* ll683 O

Ang es <^jj^-^ __ 5Q 3 J Q jj^^^^ j^L 1] 188 -2

And IL 11186 4
In the nth triangle KLM, to find LM.
. , TLKM = 28° 52' 30'/ The side KL 11188 2

^^^^\KML = 63 31 O Hence LM 6036 2

In the 12th triangle LMN, to find LN.
^^ ^^g fLMN = 60° 38' 0'' The side LM 6036 2

"^^^\MNL = 29 28 20 Hence LN 10691 O

In the 13th triangle ILN, to find NI.
The sum of the angles ILK, KLM, MLN,

taken from 36o, there remains The sides LN 10691 O

Angle ILN = 119° 32' 40'' And IL 11186 4

Hence IN I8905 O
Thus, the line of distance, EN being as before said, divided into three un-
equal parts, EG, GI, IN, the measures of all three are found by this series of
triangles; viz. EG = 31897, GI = 17557, IN = I8905. These added
together, make the length of EN, which is the line of distance between Mal-
voisin and Sourdon, viz. 68359 toises.

Now to continue this measure from Sourdon to Amiens, in order to verify
Fernelius's account; in fig. 8, R is the steeple of St. Peter's, in Montdidier; T,
a tree on the hill of Mareuil ; V, the lantern of Notre Dame, of Amiens.
To find the distance NV, observe NLM, the last triangle of fig. 7, and see how
it is disposed in fig. 9 ; where, in the triangle LMR,

fLMR = 58'' 21' 50'-^ The side LM 6037 O

^^ 1mRL = 68 52 30 Hence LR 5510 3

In the triangle NRL ;
rNRL=115'' 1' 30" ThesideLR 5510 3

^"^ \RNL = 27 50 30 Hence NR 7122 2

* These two lines, HI and IK, are corrected from another calculation of them, in Picard's book.

m

TOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1^7

Then in the triangle NRT, fig. 8; Toises Feet

. , TNTR = 7^° '25' 40'/ The sideNR 7122 2

^^\TNR = 67 21 40 Hence NT 4822 4

Finally, in the triangle NTV;
/NTV = 83° 58' 40'/ The side NT 4822 4

"^^^tTNV = 70 34 30 Hence NV Iii6l 4

Now adding the distance between Malvoisin and Sourdon, viz. 68359 O

To the distance between Sourdon and Amiens 1 1 l6l 4

The whole will be the distance between Malvoisin and Amiens 79520 4
Having thus measured the particular distances between Malvoisin, Mareuil,
Sourdon, and Amiens, he proceeds to examine the position of each of these
lines of distance in respect of the meridian, or to deduce the length of the
meridian intercepted between the parallels of Malvoisin and Amiens, which was
thus done: — In Sept. 1669, from the top of the hill Mareuil, marked with G
in fig. 7, from whence may be seen Clermont on one side, at I, and Malvoisin
on the other side, at E, he took the meridian, and with a quadrant the angles
of declination from this meridian ; and he found —

The angle EGs in fig. 7? the dec. of EG from the merid. westw. 0° 26' O"
The angle GI9, the declin. of GI from the meridian eastward 1 9 o
The angle INV, the declin. of IN from the meridian eastward 2 9 10
The angle VN|3, in fig. 8, the dec. of NV from the merid. westw. 18 55 O
So that in all these 4 triangles, EGs, GI9, INV, VN|3, there are two angles
known, (for the angles at £, at 6, at V, at j3, are right,) and a side, viz. EG, GI,
IN, NV ; whence he concludes.

The length of the meridian Gf to be . . . . 31894to i.Oft.
of the meridian I& ........ 17560 3

of the meridian NV I8893 3

of the meridian N|3 IO559 3

And hence the length of the whole meridian « (3

between the parallels of Malvoisin and Amiens to be 78907 3

Though these lines, which make up the meridian, are not in strictness a curve,
but in reality the side of a polygon circumscribed about the circumference of the
earth ; yet the difference between those lines and a true curve is only 3 feet for
a degree, which he observes is scarce worthy of notice, as he afterwards proves.
The length of the meridian between Malvoisin and Amiens being thus stated,
his next business is, to enquire what answers to it in the heavens, comparing
those meridian distances already measured, with minutes and seconds there.
These were taken by an instrument, whose limb was an arch of ^ of a circle,
of 10 feet radius. The star in the knee of Cassiopeia was that he pitched on,
from whence to measure the minutes and seconds of a degree in the heavens.

\QS PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iGjS,

He then assigns how many toises or fathoms, Parisian measure, answer to a
degree of the circumference of the earth; as for instance, the difference of
latitude between Malvoisin and Sourdon is found, by observations made in the

heavens, to be 1° 1 1 ' 57'

And between Malvoisin and Amiens 1 22 55

Now the meridian distance between Malvoisin and Sourdon, calculated from
measures taken on the earth, as found above, was 604304- toises ; so hence it
is concluded, that 57064-l toises, or, in a round number, 57060 toises, are
equal to a degree. Hence the whole circumference of the earth, or 360 de-
grees, comes out 2054 1600 toises, and its diameter 6538594 toises.*

* Since this measurement of meridional degrees, by Picard, many others have been made, in different
latitudes and countries, and with continual improvements and accuracy, both in the instruments and the ob-
servers ; as in America, north and south, Lapland, Germany, Italy, France, and lastly in England, by Major
Mudge, of the royal artillery, with an accuracy, both of instruments and labour, perhaps never before at-
tempted : Of which we may hereafter have occasion to give a detailed historical account in another part
of these abridgements. At present we shall only advert to the probable cause of a newly observed irregu-
larity in the measures of the degrees.

In all the measures of degrees, in different latitudes, when compared with each other, irregularities have
occurred, the lengths of any of them appearing to be either too great or too little, in respect of the others,
and that by differences which have no uniformity or harmony among themselves. But in the last measure-
ment abovementioned, 1 am told there is an aberration in the conclusions which runs in a pretty regular and
uniform series, which will probably appear in a paper of Major Mudge, which I have not yet seen, to be in
the next volume of the Philosophical Transactions, for this year 1803. Now those irregularities have usually
and chiefly been ascribed to errors in the terrestrial measures. But it is our opinion that the deviations prin-
cipally arise from the celestial observations, viz. the observed latitudes, resulting from the observed zenith
distances of certain stars. These zenith distances are probably all or most of them erroneous, in consequence
of the deviations of the plumb line of the zenith sector, produced by the unequal attractions, on the plummet,
of the inequalities in the adjacent parts of the earth's surface, sometimes in excess from hills, and sometimes
in defect from valleys and seas. And this cause will very well account, not only for the usual irregularities,
but particularly for that uniform deviation in Major Mudge's degrees, which are of this nature, that in going
from south to north the terrestrial lengths of those degrees become successively shorter and shorter, from
beginning to end, instead of measuring longer and longer, as they ought to do, from the oblate spheroidal
figure of the earth. Now this aberration appears to be exactly what might be expected from the position of
the part of the meridian here measured, which consists of almost 3 degrees, extending from Dunnose at the
Isle of Wight, to the north-east corner of Yorkshire, near the mouth of the river Tees. Now by casting an
eye on the map of England, or of Europe, we perceive the English channel on the south end of the line,
and the still farther extended northern sea at the north end. And these hollows will naturally occasion a de-
fect of attraction on the plummet, the one on the south and the other on the north, according as it is near
the one or the other of these depressions. Hence then, at Dunnose, or the south end of that meridian line,
the plummet, or the lower end of the apparent vertical line, will be drawn toward the north, while at the
north end of the meridian line it will hare a deviation to the south, and that in a more considerable degree
than the former, on account of the more extensive depression of the northern ocean. In consequence the
zenith points of the plumb line will deviate the opposite way, viz. at the southern station the apparent zenith
will be too far to the south, while at the northern station it must be directed too far to the north. Hence it
must happen that the celestial difference of latitude between these two stations, being the distance between
those two apparent zeniths, will be greater than the true or terrestrial difference, by the sum of the said two
deviations. From which it follows that, between those two stations, the celestial arcs appearing to be too
large, the observed or celestial degrees will change faster than the terrestrial or measured degrees, or will have
measures less than the truth, and that always more and more in defect, in receding from the south, and ap-
proaching to the noith, on account of the greater defect of matter at this latter. Thus then we have a pro-

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQQ

Of very exact Portable Watches ; from the Journal des Sgavans. By M, Huy"

gens. N° 112, p. 272.

The watches of this invention being made small, will serve for very exact
pocket- watches ; and when made larger will be useful every where else, and
particularly to find the longitudes both by sea and land, as their movement is
regulated by a principle of equality, as that of pendulums is in a cycloid, and
that no kind of carriage shall be able to stop them. The secret of the inven-
lion consists in a spiral spring, fastened by its innermost end to the axis or arbor
of a poised balance, larger and heavier than is usual, which turns on its pivots;
and by its other end to a piece that is fastened to the watch-plate; which spring,
when the balance-wheel is once set agoing, alternately shuts and opens its
spires, and with the small assistance it has from the watch-wheels, keeps up the
motion of the balance-wheel ; so that, though it turn more or less, the times
of its reciprocations are always equal to one another.

In fig. 1, pi. 8, the upper plate of the watch is AB ; the circular balance-
wheel CD, of which the arbor is EF; the spring turned spirally, GHM,
fastened to the arbor of the balance-wheel at M, and to the piece that is fixed to
the watch-plate at G ; all the spires or windings of the spring being free, with-
out touching any thing ; NOPQ is the cock, in which one of the pivots of the
balance-wheel turns; RS is one of the indented wheels of the watch, having a
balancing motion, which the balance-wheel of rencontre gives to it. And this
wheel RS catches in the pinion T, which holds on the arbor of the balance,-
whose motion by this means is preserved as much as is necessary.

Extract of a Letter dated Amsterdam, Oct. 9, 1674, to the Editor, by Dr.
Swammerdam, of an unusual Rupture of the Mesentery. N° 112, p. 273.

The accompanying figure (fig. 20, pi. 8) represents a fatal volvulus or iliac pas-
sion, caused by a rupture of the mesentery, and its tight convolution round the
intestines. — A. A. The intestinum ileum distended in a surprising manner by
chyle, air, and faeces, and in an inflamed state. — B. B. The ruptured mesentery,
forming a sort of ligature, twisted round the gut so tightly as to occasion death.
— C. C. The ligature just mentioned, formed of the ruptured mesentery, and
twisted round the gut like the tendril of a vine. — D. D. The aforesaid ligature
separately represented, together with its capreolus or tendril, composed of two

bable cause of the inverted order in the measures of the degrees. Hence also most other measured meridians
will be erroneous, especially in the parts near seas, or near large mountains. And that insular situations
must be worst of any, having the plumb line deviating to the north at the south end of the land, to the
south at the north end, to the east at the west side, and to the west at the east side ; thus producing errors in
all observed latitudes and longitudes. But suffice it, at present, just to give the hint of a probable cause of
such errors and aberrations.

200 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

circumvolutions. — E. E. The volvulus itself, being a part of the intestinum ileum,
tied tightly by the ligature, and approaching to a state of sphacelation ; whence
a complete obstruction of the passage by stool was produced, so that the contents
of the small intestines were voided upwards by an almost incessant vomiting. —
F. Part of the intestinum ileum so constricted by the aforesaid preternatural
ligature, as to have the appearance of a blind gut. — G. The extremity of the
ileum where it becomes colon. — H. The colon a little contracted, but [in other
respects] of a natural appearance. — I. The caecum.

OnAstroites or Star-stones. By Mr. Martin Lister. N° 112, p. 274.

These astroites or star-stones, were brought me from the Yorkshire Wolds.
I have seen them dug out of a certain blue clay, on the banks of a small rivu-
let, at the foot of the Wolds. There are plenty of them washed into the brook;
but the most fair and solid are those that are got out of the clay.

The matter and substance of these stones, if broken, is flint-like, of a dark
shining polish; but much softer, and easily corroded by an acid menstruum.
Vinegar indeed makes them creep ; but a stronger spirit, as of nitre, moves
them violently. I doubt not but they will readily calcine, as the belemnites, to
a very strong and white lime. These stones are all fragments, as we have
observed of the entrochi; either one single joint, or two, three, or more joints
set together, forming a five- sided column. I have not yet had any piece much
above 1 inch long, which consisted of 18 joints; but I have seen one piece,
somewhat shorter than the former, which had 15 joints. Every joint consists
of 5 angles, which are either jutting out and sharp, and consequently the sides
of pieces, made up of such joints, are deep channelled; or the angles are blunt
and round, and the sides plain or very little hollowed. Where the joints are
thin or deep, they are so equally throughout the whole piece ; yet there are
some, though very few pieces, which consist of joints of unequal thickness.
Many of the thick-jointed pieces have certain joints somewhat broader, or a
very little standing out at the angles, and thereby the joints are distinguished
into conjunctions of two, three, or more joints: and these conjunctions are very
observable in the thin-jointed stones, and are marked out with a set of wires.

The thickest piece yet come to my hands, is not above an inch and a half
about, and those very rare too: from which size to that of a small pin, I have
all the intermediate proportions; and these so exceedingly small pieces are as
exactly shaped as the largest. Most pieces, if not all, of any considerable length,
are not straight, but visibly bent and inclining. All the pieces of any sort are
much of an equal thickness, or but little tapering ; yet one of the ends, by
reason of a top joint, is visibly the thickest. This top joint has five blunt
angles, and is not etched or engraven, or but very faintly, on the outside.

VOL. IX.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 201

Every joint else of a piece, save the top joint, is an intaglio, and deeply engra-
ven on both sides alike, and will accordingly serve for a seal. The middle of
each angle is hollow, and the edges of the angles are thick furrowed : the ter-
mination of these etchings are the indented sutures, by which the joints are set
together; the ridges of one joint being alternately let into the furrows of the other
next it. The etchings of the flat-sided pieces are in circular lines; but of the
other two species they are straight lines or nearly so. In the very centre of the
five angles is a small hole, conspicuous in most joints ; and in the middle of each -
joint, between angle and angle, in the very suture, is another such like small
pin hole very apparent, if the stones be first well scoured. In the deep-jointed
pieces, just under the top-joint, above described, may be observed the traces of
certain wires, rather than branches; and sometimes two, three, or more of the
joints of the wires yet adhering. These wires are always five in number, viz.
one in the middle or hollow part between angle and angle.

It is no wonder that these wires are knocked off, and but very rarely found
adhering to the stones they belong to, being very small and slender, of a round
figure, and smooth-jointed, set together per harmoniam, and not indented
suture. Nothing is so like these wires as the antennae of lobsters. Lastly,
some of these wires are knotted, and others of them fairly subdivided or
branched.

Many of these star-stones are represented in pi. 8, in the figures from 1 to J 7 ;
the explanations of which are as below: —

] . The top-joint of an astroites, figured on both sides ; on the one it is deeply
engraven, on the other the etches are scarcely visible. Also the ends of the five
angles are very blunt. 2. A second or sharp-angled joint, with fair etchings on
both sides. 3. Apiece with very narrow and sharp angles. Also the top-joint
designed, as it naturally nppears smooth, and without etchings. 4. A round-
angled joint. 5. A flat-sided piece ; where the etchings are somewhat circular.
6. A thin jointed piece : where note also, that the angles are inuch narrower,
and of a protracted oval figure. 1 . The largest piece I have yet seen, a little
bending. 8. The smallest piece I have yet met with. g. The longest piece ;
where every 4th joint is somewhat larger or more prominent than the rest; as
in the 7th fig. also is well designed. 10. A large and round-angled or flat-sided
piece; to which belongs that single joint noted fig. 4. 1 1 . A flat or not hollow-
sided piece; of which sort also is the 5th figure; the 10th and 4th not much
differing. J 2. A thin-jointed piece; where the conjunctions are marked out by
the traces of the several sets of wires or branches. 13. A piece where the
joints are unequal in thickness. 14. A piece with some part of the wires yet
adhering in their natural order at the largest end of the piece. 15. A thin-
voh. II. D j>

202 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

jointed piece ; where on the left side is a single wire accidentally preserved in its
natural place, though snapped asunder. l6. A thick-jointed piece with a set of
wires in the middle of it. 17. A good long piece of a wire, and a single joint
thereof.

^n Account of Two Booh, N° 112, p. 279.

I. Les dix Livres d' Architecture de Vitruve, corriges, et traduits nouvelle-
ment en Francois, avec des Notes et des Figures; par Claude Perrault* de
I'Academie Royale des Sciences, et Medecin de la Faculte de Paris. Imprime a
Par. 1673, infol.

The author of this version of Vitruvius, and of the notes upon him, consider-
ing that one of the obstacles to the advancement of architecture, was the diffi-
culty of drawing the precepts of the art from its true and genuine source, by
reason of the great obscurity of Vitruvius, who is the only writer of the
ancients that we have on this subject, undertook therefore, by a translation into
the French tongue, and by notes on the difficult places, and also by illustrating
all with figures, to render this author more clear and useful to those who
embrace the profession and practice of that noble art. These figures and expla-
nations having been rendered the more necessary, by the obscurity in many
passages in Vitruvius, owing, it is supposed, partly to the mis-copyings, and
partly to the omission of the original figures, by the transcribers.

The figures which serve for illustration, are done with no ordinary care and
elegance : amongst which there are, the representation of the Parisian obser-
vatory, for making celestial and other natural observations : models of two new
engines for raising heavy burthens; so contrived as to avoid rubbing; invented
by the interpreter himself, the one by a roller, the other by a lever. An engine
for raising w ater very high and incessantly, and that in great quantity, without
employing any external force ; a scheme of the organ of the ancients, as also of
their catapultae, and balistae, the former casting javelins, the latter stones. The
models of these engines, and many more, both ancient and modern, are to be

* This author was born at Paris, l6l3, his father being an advocate to the Parliament, original]/
of Tours. He studied philosophy and natural history, as well as medicine, which was his original
profession, but neglected it for the fine arts, and became a celebrated architect. In this way he
erected some grand works, and was author of some useful books, besides the translation in this article
above noticed J viz. 1. An Abridgement of Vitruvius, in 12mo. 2. Ordonnances des cinq especes
de Colonnes se.lon la methode des Anciens, l683, fol. 3. A Collection of Machines of his own
invention. 4. Essais de Physique, 4 vols. 12mo, or 2 vols, 4to. 5, Meraoires pour servir a
I'Histoire naturelle des Animaux, 3 vols. 4to. Perrault died at Paris, Oct. 9, 1688, at 75 years
of age.

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 203

found in the royal library at Paris, where the French Academy hold their ordi-
nary meetings.

II. Authonii le Grand Dissertatio de Carentia Sensiis et Cognitionis in Brutis:
Lond. 1671.

The author of this tract, consonantly to the Cartesian principle, places the
life of animals in the continued motion of the blood. And then declares his
opinion that matter is incapable of perception ; as also that cogitation cannot be
truly affirmed of extension, neither as an essential part, nor as a property, nor
as a mode thereof: against Mr. Hobbes, who undertakes to maintain cogitation
to be a corporeal motion ; and likewise showing, against Gassendi, that it is
improbable that sense should arise from insensible things.

M. Leibnitz on his Portable Watches. N° 113, p. 285.

The principle I thought on some years ago, for making exact portable
watches, is altogether different from that which consists in an equal duration of
unequal vibrations of pendulums or springs, applied to watches by M. Huygens,
with such general applause ; this depending upon a physical observation ; but
mine being grounded on a mere mechanical reflexion, which is easy enough,
and whereof the reason and demonstration itself are manifest to our senses,
which have not been noticed, for want of the art of combination, the use of
which is far more general than that of algebra. For having considered with
myself, that a spring being bent to the same degree, will always unbend itself
in the same time, provided it find the same freedom of unbending itself sud-
denly : I inferred from thence, that there might be employed two such, one of
which should play, while the first mover of the watch should bend the other
again ; since it will be no matter in this way, whether it bend again more or less
speedily, provided it bend only again before the other have done unbending
itself; and consequently, the one delivering the other at the end of its motion,
this play will always continue uniform, and so by letting go, at every turn or
period of these two springs, a tooth of a wheel carried about by the ordinary
motion, which counts seconds, or other parts of time equal to the periods, we
shall have such a watch as is desired by us.

These thoughts I have executed in the following manner : — Let AB be one
of the watch-plates, (fig. 19, pi. 8) ; C and M two indented barrels, wherein the
small springs are enclosed. The teeth of the barrels catch those of the pinions
d, d, which carry the balances e, e; and other teeth of the said barrels are
caught by those of the interrupted wheel FG. Now let us imagine, that this
wheel FG, being moved towards HF, by the force of the first mover of the
watch, and turning the barrel C, bends the spring enclosed in it, and stops with

D D 2

'204 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1675

the barrel as soon as it has bent this spring. This piece which serves to stop, is
easy, and has not been thought necessary to be marked here, to avoid embarrass-
ing the figure. Bat while one indented part of the interrupted wheel F G, viz.
F, turns the barrel C, the empty parts opposed thereto, answers to the other
barrel M, and gives liberty to its enclosed spring to unbend itself. Thus while
the movement of the watch bends the small spring of the barrel C, in the same
time the small spring of the other barrel M unbends of itself. I say, in the same
time, except the spring C shall have done bending a little sooner than the spring
M shall have unbent itself: so that the spring C being bent, and the wheel FG
stopped, both of them stay in this posture, till the spring M, when it shall be
quite unbent, at the end of its motion, touch a piece which delivers it. And
then the spring C unbends of itself in its turn ; the teeth of the interrupted
wheel, which continues its motion the same way as before, since it is delivered,
not being any more able to hinder it therefrom, because the barrel C now meets
with the empty part H of the said wheel. But before it has done unbending
itself, the indented part I, being opposite to the empty part H, that turns the
barrel M, bends its spring again, and having done so, stops with it, while the
spring C, making an end of unbending itself, delivers them by a reciprocal good
office, and renders to the spring M the same services, which it had received
from it, with an expectation of receiving the like again.

Which being well considered, it is manifest, that the same alternative motions
w^ill continue always : that the periods taken from the very moment that one
spring begins to unbend, until the moment it once unbends itself again, will
always be of equal duration, though the two small springs be not equally strong:
that the balance of such a watch will be double, and be charged more or less,
and receive delay, by advancing or recoiling, along the two arms, two equal
weights, counter-balancing one another, that so the change of the situation
may not at all prejudice the equality of the watch. For the rest, we may in this
kind of watches spare the fusee, and consequently the string or chain. It is
also easy to judge, that such watches as these may be of a size sufficiently
small ; that they will make no more noise than ordinary watches ; that they will
be as exact as pendulums, and cease not to go while they are winding up. And
though the motion of the watch -wheels maybe altered by many accidents, such as
are, the inequality of themotion of the great ordinary spring, I mean the first mover;
the more or less rubbing of the wheels according as the oil grows thinner orthicker;
the rust, the verdigrise, the play of the pieces, the inequality of the teeth and
the like; yet the periods of the small springs will not be concerned in all or any
of them, provided the motion of the watch-wheels have always more strength
than it needs to bend them again; which is in our power. And so the principle

VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 205

of equality here is sure by a kind of demonstration altogether geometrical, and
withal vei-y evident even to ordinary capacities.

It remains to notice, in a few words, the objections that have been made
against this contrivance by some intelligent persons. They have all acknow-
ledged, that this would be a perfectly exact watch for common use; but if em-
ployed for finding the longitudes, there would occur these difficulties, viz. that
tossing of ships would shake the springs as well as other pieces; that rust would
spoil them, since the saltish humidity of the sea in remote voyages spares not the
very needles of compasses, though enclosed in boxes ; that the changes of
seasons and climates will sensibly alter the springs, especially the great heats, or
rains within the tropics, which at length will somewhat untemper the steel ; as
is confirmed by the experiments of the illustrious academy of Florence, showing
how easily heat and cold change slender springs : besides that the air, more or
less condensed, will also more or less resist the motion of the balance. To
which may be added, that springs are weakened by working; and lastly, that
there will be always some little friction, that will make the several pieces go
more or less easily, and that even in length of time they will wear out.

But I answer, that all these defects, that proceed from the imperfection of the
matter, may be surmounted by a general remedy, without examining them here
in particular. And that is, that for executing it in great, we may make use of
massy springs, as are those of cross-bows, we being masters of them, not want-__,
ing force or place in a ship to govern a great weight that may serve to bend
them continually again. Now these massy springs may be so great, and their
restitution so speedy by augmenting their number, that all the above named
defects will have no colisiderable proportion to this strength, and the aggregate
of their repetitions will not be sensible till after a very long time. And it is easy
to demonstrate, that by augmenting the size of the engine, and the force of the
massy springs, we may make the error as small as we please, provided we pass
not the bounds of conveniency, and content ourselves with an exactness suffi-
cient for the end they are principally designed for, which is the finding of the
longitudes : which answer is so clear and so universal, that all those that have
considered it have expressed their satisfaction therein.

Ohservatio EcUpseos Lunce totalis cum Occultationihus quanindam Fixarum, habita
d Joh, Hevelio, Anno 1675, die 9,11 Januarii S. N. Fesp. N° 113, p. 289.

This eclipse was observed by Hevelius, atDantzic, as follows:

Beginning of the eclipse . , 6h. 41m. 50s.

Total immersion 7 42 44

206 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

Emersion begins gh. 12m. 30s.

End of the eclipse 10 20 0

Duration of total darkness 1 29 46

Total duration of eclipse 3 38 10

The clock corrected by altitudes of the stars.

The Improvement of Cornwall by Sea-sand. By Dr. Dan. Cox. !N° 113, p. 293.

This sand, employed in the agriculture of Cornwall, is commonly at or near
the sea shore. To distinguish it from what is useless, observe, that the wash
of the sea rolls and tumbles stones and shells, &c. one over another, whose
grating makes this sand. If the matter be shelfy, that is the grating of stones,
it is of small value. But if it be shelly, then it is good. Of this shelly sand
there are three colours. About Plymouth, and the southern coast, the sand is
bluish or grey like ashes ; which I conceive to be from the breaking of muscles
chiefly, and oyster-shells mixed with it. Westward near the Land's-end, the
sand is very white, and in Scilly, glistering. This I think happens from the
mouldering of moor-stones, or a kind of free-stone mingled with very white
shells called scollops. On the north sea, from about Padstow and eastwards to
Lundy, the sand is rich and of a brown reddish-yellowish colour, and is mostly
of the broken shells of cockles ; which I guess to be of that colour there, from
the wash of the Severn, which falls very dirty into the Severn sea, and perhaps
that accretion of the shells may be tinged thereby.

Now besides these colours of sands, there is also a difference in the size of
the grain. Even in the same harbour of Plymouth in some coves, it is very
small, in others long grained, and is used variously for divers purposes. It is
said that the small is best for the tenant, who only takes to tillage for four years,
because it works sooner, and yields a speedy return. The larger grained is said
to be better for the landlord and the land ; because it lasts longer in the ground,
and makes the pasture afterwards the better.

Of all these sands, the best are accounted, as to colour, first the reddish,
next the blue, then the white. As to kinds, the most shelly and the coralline
are best : and that which is taken up from under the salt-water, either by
dredges, or being left open by the ebbing of the tide. The blown sand is ac-
counted of no use. And generally, if sand be well drained of the salt-water,
so that it may be more conveniently carried, it is better than that which has lain
long drying in the sun and wind, which takes off'much of its virtue.

These useful sands are carried by lighters as far up into the country as the
tides will serve to that purpose, and there they are cast on shore. When brought
home, it is spread on the ground intended for wheat, or usually in the first crop

VGL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTI0N8. 207

of four, whatever be the grain. For after four crops, it is the custom to leave
the land to pasture for 6 or 7 years, before tilling it again. And the grass will
be so good immediately after tillage, that it is commonly mowed the first year ;
and is called mowing of gratten.

The Cornish acre is 8 score yards, of 1 8 feet to the yard ; in one of which
acres good husbands bestow according to the nearness or distance. Near the
sand, 300 sacks are laid; at other distances 200, or 150, or even 80. And so
proportionably in greater distance, even to 20 or 30 sacks in an acre, rather than
none.

The effect is usually where much sand is used, the seed is much, and the
straw little. I have seen in such a place good barley where the ear has been even
equal in length with the stalk it grew on. But where less sand is used, there is
much straw, and but little, and that hungry grain.

After the corn is off, the grass becomes mostly a white clover, with some
purple, if the land he deeper. And this grass of well sanded ground, though it
be but short, yet as to feeding, giving good creams, plenty of milk, and all
other good purposes, it far exceeds the longer grass, where less sand is used.
Garden herbs also and fruits, in those places, are more and better in their kind.
In those well sanded places also little or no snow lies ; there is a continual
winter spring ; an early harvest, a month or 6 weeks before what is within 6 or
7 miles of the place; and such a vast difference of the air is found in so little a
distance, that a man may in an afternoon travel as it were out of Spain into the
Orkneys.

^n Account of some Books. N° 113, p. 296.
I. Hermetis Egyptiorum et chemicorum Sapientia, ab Hermanni Conringii*
Animadversionibus vindicata per Olaum Borrichium, Hafniae, Anno 1674,
in 4to.

* An account of Borrichius having been already given in the 1st vol. of our Abridgement; we
shall here insert some biographical particulars concerning his opponent.

Herman Conringius was a man of universal erudition, and acquired a great reputation in all tlie
tliree professions of divinity, law, and physic. He was born at Norden, in East Friesland, 1606, and
died at Helmstadt, KiSl, aged 75. He was of a remarkably diminutive stature, but possessed great
dimension of intellect, and a very retentive memory. Besides tlie professorship of physic, he held
other appointments in the university of Helmstadt, and had the title of councillor of state conferred
upon him by the province of East Friesland, and by tlie courts of Brunswick, Denmark, and Sweden.
He also enjoyed an annual pension from tlie King of France. His historical works are very volumi-
nous. Of his writings which relate to physic, the most celebrated are his de (rermanicorura corporum
habitus antiqui et novi causis, 4to, l6i3, andhis Introductio in unlversam artem medicam, 4to, l654.
It is his Treatise de Hermetica iEgyptiorum medicina, which is attacked by Bonichius, in the work
of which an analysis is given by Mr. Oldenburg.

208 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. PaNNO 1673.

The learned author of this vindication, begins with showing against his famous
antagonist, that the Egyptian Hermes, as an excellent man, a great physician
and chemist, has well deserved of all mankind, and consequently is highly
injured by Conringius's detractions. In this part the reader will meet with a
fund of learning and antiquity, and see, among many other particulars, that
Pythagoras, one of the best and most solid philosophers and mathematicians
among the ancients, learned his philosophy in Egypt ; that the great work of
transmutation is due to this Hermes; that from thence the Egyptians acquired
that immense wealth, by which they raised such vast structures ; that those
Egyptians were so skilful in making artificial gems, that in lustre and hardness
they vied with the true natural ones ; those ancient artists being masters of three
things in this their work, which by the Grecians were called a^ai'wo-i?, j3«(p^, rui|/i? ;
the first implying a laxity .of pores, sufficient to imbibe the tincture; the
second, a strong adhesion and due lustre of the colour; the third, a hardening
again of the body of the gem, after the ingress of the tincture.

He takes notice of another particular, strictly observed among the old Egyp-
tians, viz. that each of their physicians applied himself to the knowledge and
cure of one only disease, by which he became very sagacious and expert in
recovering his patients of such a malady; which way could not but conduce very
much to the improvement of physic, and the benefit of the people. He ob-
serves also, that the most celebrated men of Greece travelled into Egypt to
acquire knowledge, and gained every advantage from their travels they could
. desire.

Discoursing of the virtues of preparations made of animal substances, and
particularly of the spirit of blood, he declares, that the volatile spirits of human
blood are more powerful in the curing of the epilepsy, than those of the blood
of other animals; refuting the assertion of Conringius, importing, that the
ancients did not employ human blood but in their magics.

Examining the controversy, whether the virtues of purgatives or vomitives
pass into their distilled waters, he recites an experiment he made on a dog, with
the distilled water of black hellebore, which was, that having given him 12
spoonfuls of it within 4 hours, he vomited four times, and dunged twice, all
very copiously.

Discussing the question about the resuscitation of plants, which he seems
inclined to maintain, he alleges, for the countenancing of it, the regeneration
of bodies of other kinds, and amongst them he takes notice of mercury, affirm-
ing, that that substance, having been a whole year exposed to various fires, and
reduced into water, turbith, and ashes, will, by the attraction of the salt of tartar
amidst the flames, return to the pristine liquor : and that lead, reverberated into

rOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 20^

minium, melted into glass, reduced into a cerusse, burnt to a litharge ; in a word,
tormented, torn, or burnt, as you please, it will soon rise again into genuine
lead, by a bare dexterous application of lixiviate salt.

Conringius affirming, that all sorts of diseases have been cured without che-
mical remedies; Borrichius maintains, that the lues venerea, a confirmed dropsy,
and phthisis, and cancer, and several other maladies, will very rarely be cured
by mere Galenical medicaments.

In the conclusion our author shows, that Paracelsus's * manners had been too

♦ Tills extraordinary man, who assumed the pompous title of Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus
Paracelsus Bombast ab Hohenheim, but whose real name is said to have been Haechener, was born,
according to some biographers, at Einsidlen, in Switzerland, according to others in the small village
of Gaiss, in 1493. Very early in life he manifested a strong passion for chemistry, and travelled
into various parts of Europe, chiefly with a view of perfecting himself in this his favourite study. On
his return from his travels, he was appointed to a chemical and medical professorship at Basil, but he
quitted this situation two or three years afterwards, owing to a disappointment he experienced from
the issue of a prosecution he had instituted against one of his patients, for the recovery of a most
exorbitant fee, of which only a moiety was awarded him by the judges. After this he removed to
Alsace, where he resided a considerable time, and got into great repute for his real or pretended
cures. He died at Saltsburg, in ISS-i, according to some accounts ; in 1541 according to others; in
either case at an age rather premature for one who pretended to keep concealed, in the hilt of an old
sword which he constantly wore, an infallible remedy (which he termed Azoth) against all kinds of
diseases. It would seem that Bacchus triumphed over all his arcana j for, during some years before
his death, he is said to have carried his indulgence in wine to such excess, tliat he never went to bed
sober, nor ever took off his clothes.

When we contemplate the conduct of Paracelsus, or look into his writings, we are astonished that
such a man should ever have attracted that degree of notice which he once did. But credulity was
the characteristic feature of the age and country in which he lived. How else could it happen, that
his barbarous and unintelligible jargon should pass for science ; that the sick, rich as well as poor,
should have faith in one, who set at nought all the labours of preceding philosophers and physicians ;
who pronounced anatomy useless ; who neglected to investigate the symptoms and progress of dis-
eases ; and instead of searching into their real nature and origin, assigned for their production certain
fictitious chemical agents; and, to fill the measure of absurdity, pretended to have a specific remedy
for all. Such, indeed, was the credulity, folly, and superstition of the age, that he made even a
pretension to magic, subservient to his interests. Thus he asserted, that in the portico of the infer-
nal regions, he had disputed with Avicenna, concerning his potable gold, &c, ; and that he could
produce from the seihen virile, put into a phial well corked and sealed, and subjected to a process
which he describes, an artificial homuncule, resembling in all respects, excepting its diminutiveness,
the real human offspring ! These, it is evident, are the extravagancies not merely of an impostor, but
of a madman; in fact, the anecdotes recorded of him by his assistant Oporinus, scarcely leave a doubt
that he was subject to fi^equent paroxysms of insanity. We suppose it was in some of these phrensy-fits
that he wrote about his familiar demon, about sylphs, and gnomes, and fairies, &c. His collected
worksj the greater part of which was published after his death, amount to 3 vols, folio.

Inimical as Paracelsus was to true philosophy and science, and extravagant and empirical as he was
in his conduct and writings ; yet would it appear that he advantaged medicine in some degree, inas-
much as he weaned physicians from that too servile veneration, which, before his time was paid to the

VOL. II. E E

tilO PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67 5 ,

severely represented; but whatever they were, that that ought not to rob him
■of the praise due to his knowledge. Again, that being provoked by a crowd
of enemies, he had indulged too far in that human imperfection, which is in-
clined to retaliate with recriminations ; yet that he had not been a magician in
the worse sense ; of which crime the learned Naudaeus also had upon good
grounds acquitted him. Moreover, that though his servant Oporinus, gained
by his master's adversaries, had virulently inveighed against him ; yet may there
be gathered out of that Oporinus's epistle more matter of praise for Paracelsus^
than all his enemies together have deserved ; forasmuch as it is there said, Fuisse
in Paracelso mirabilem faciendi medicinam in omni morborum genere prompti-
tudinem et felicitatem. — In curandis ulceribus, etiam deploratissimis, miracula
eum edidisse, nulld victus praescript^ aut observatd ratione. — Laudano suo itk
gloriatum fuisse, ut affirmare non dubitarit, ejus soli us usu se e mortuis vivos
reddere posse, idque aliquoties, dum ille (Oporinus) apud ipsum fuit, declarasse !

Mentioning Paracelsus's skill in making the grand elixir, as they call it, our
author recites a narration made in his hearing by the Count of Windishgratz,
the Emperor's ambassador at the Danish court, concerning a person that was
possessor of that great arcanum. — In this narration it is stated, that a certain
monk, who resided at Vienna, in the Emperor's palace, was in possession of a
purplish-red powder, by means of which he could transmute the baser metals
into pure gold; and that being dangerously ill of a fever, he was questioned by
the physician who attended him concerning this matter, and confessed " ex in-
diciis quibusdam se inductum, ut latentem alicubi quem olim Paracelsus se-
posuerat, lapidem philosophicum fodiendo investigaret, quaesivisse sollicite, et
reperisse !"

II. The Garden of Eden, or an Account of the Culture of Flowers and
Fruits now growing in England; with particular Rules how to advance their
Nature and Growth, as well in Seeds and Herbs, as in ordering of Trees
and Shrubs: in two parts, in 8vo, written by Sir Hugh Piatt, Knt. newly re-
printed.

This title sufficiently explains the nature and contents of the book.

On a Storm and some Lakes in Scotland. By Sir George Machen^y, Communis

cated by Mr. James Gregory. N'' 114, p. 30/.

The wind here, at Tarbut, Dec. 21, 1674, was extraordinary: it broke a

standard-stone, that stood as an obelisk, about 1 2 feet high, 5 broad, and nearly

2 feet in thickness. Whole woods were overturned, being torn up from the

doctrines of the ancients, and showed, (as indeed Basil Valentine also did,) the possibility of curing
diseases by a shorter and more vigorous method, viz. by the employment of antimonialsj mer-
curials, and other chemical preparations.

TOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^U

roots, though in a low situation. The wind blew from the north-west, and for
a long time it had continued westerly.

There is a little lake in Straherrick, on the Lord Lovel's * lands, which never
freezes all over, even in the most vehement frosts, before February; but one
night's frost after that will freeze it all over, and two nights will make the ice of
a very considerable thickness. I have since been told of two other lakes, one
of which is on lands belonging to myself, called Loch Monar, pretty large,
which steadily keeps the same course. There is another little lake in Straglash
at Glencanich, on lands belonging to one Chisholm ; the lake lies in a bottom
between the tops of a very high hill, so that the bottom itself is very high.
This lake never wants ice on it in the middle, even in the hottest summer,
though it thaws near the edges: and this ice is found on it, though the sun, by
reason of the reflexion from the hills in that country is very hot, and lakes
lying as high in the neighbourhood have no such phenomenon. It is observable
also, that about the borders of this lake the grass keeps a continual verdure, as
if it were in a constant spring, and feeds and fattens cattle more in a week, than
any other grass in a fortnight.

Our famous lake Ness never freezes; but, on the contrary, in the most
violent frosts, the greater clouds of steams arise from it, which are soft and
warm ; and it is observed, that rosemary continued in the gardens about the
lake's side, notwithstanding the last winter's long and violent frosts ; whereas a
far less violent winter usually kills all the rosemary which is in gardens that lie in
warmer places, and at the sea side : and though I live near it, and in a better soil
and warmer situation, yet any winter, more than usually cold, kills my rosemary,
though covered over with straw and litter: whereas near Loch Ness it remained
good, though uncovered, in the last sharp winter; which is attributed to the
warm steams from that lake.

In Glenelg, at a place called Achigniglium, there is a little rivulet, which turns
holly into a greenish stone, of which tinkers, that work in brass, make both
their moulds and melting pots ; and women their round whirls for spinning.

A Conjecture concerning the Bladders of Air that are found in Fishes ; communi-
cated by K.\\ and illustrated by an Experiment suggested by the Hon, Robert
Boyle. N° 114, p. 310.

Reflecting on that question, whether liquids gravitate on bodies immersed or
not ? I came to a resolution in my own mind, that they do gravitate ; and one of
the greatest reasons that occurred to me was, that a bubble of air, rising from
the bottom^ dilates itself all the way to the top ; which is caused by the lessening

* Probably misprinted for Lord Loyat,

212 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

of the weight or pressure of the incumbent water, the nearer it is to the top.
Hence also it occurred to me, that fishes, by reason of the bladder of air that
is within them, can sustain or keep themselves in any depth of water. For the
air in that bladder is like the bubble, more or less compressed, according to the
depth the fish swims at, and takes up more or less space; and consequently the
body of the fish, part of whose bulk this bladder is, is greater or less according
to the several depths, and yet retains the same weight. The rule de insidentibus
humido, is, that a body that is heavier than so much water as, is equal in quantity
to the bulk of it, will sink; a body that is lighter will swim; a body of equal
weight will rest in any part of the water. Now by this rule, if the fish in the
middle region of the water, be of equal weight to the water that is commensu-
rate to the bulk of it, the fish will rest there without any tendency upwards or
downwards : but if the fish be deeper in the water, the bulk of the fish becoming
less by the compression of the bladder, and yet retaining the same weight, it
will sink and rest at the bottom: and, on the other side, if the fish be higher
than that middle region, the air dilating itself, and the bulk of the fish conse-
quently increasing, but not the weight, the fish will rise upwards, and rest at the
top of the water. Perhaps the fish, by some action, can emit air out of this
bladder, and afterwards out of its body, and also, when there is not enough,
take in air and convey it to this bladder ; and then it will not be wondered, that
there should be always a due proportion of air in the bodies of all fishes, to serve
their use, according to the depth of water they are bred and live in : perhaps by
some muscle the fish can contract this bladder beyond the pressure of the weight
of water; perhaps the fish can by its sides or some other defence keep off the
pressure of the water, and give the air leave to dilate itself. In these cases the
fish will be helped in all intermediate distances, and may rise or sink from any
region of the water, without moving one fin.

So far this conjecture: in reference to which, when it was propounded to the
Hon. Robert Boyle, he, reflecting on the manner how a fish comes to rise or
sink in water, soon bethought himself of an experiment probably to determine,
whether a fish makes those motions by constricting or expanding himself? The
experiment by him suggested was; to take a bolthead with a wide neck, and
having^ filled it almost full with water, to put into it some live fish of a convenient
size, that is, the largest that can be got in, as a roach, perch, or the like ; then
to draw out the neck of the bolthead as slender as you can, and to fill that
also almost with water: whereupon the fish lying at a certain depth in the water
of the glass, if upon his sinking you perceive the water at the slender top
subsides, you may infer that he contracts himself, and if, upon his rising, the
water be also raised_, you may conclude that he dilates himself.

TOL. X.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^18

On Poisonous Fish in me of the Bahama Islands. By Mr. J. L. N° 1 14, p. 3 12.

The fish here, are many of them poisonous, causing a great pain on the joints
of those who eat them, which continues so for some short time, and at last,
with two or three days itching, the pain is rubbed off. Those of the same
species, size, shape, colour and taste, are some of them poison, others not in
the least hurtful ; and those that are, are so only to some of the company. The
distem.per to men never proves mortal. Dogs and cats sometimes eat their last.
In men that have once had that disease, upon the first eating of fish, though it
be those that are wholesome, the poisonous ferment in the body is revived
thereby, and their pain increased.*

Observations on Extraordinary Oranges and Lemons. By Petrus Natus.

N° 114, p. 313.
There was a tree found in a grove near Florence ; having an orange-stock,
which, it seems, was so grafted on, that it became, in its branches, leaves,
flowers, and fruit, three-formed, some resembling oranges, some lemons or
citrons, and some partaking of both forms in one. And particularly as to the
fruit, some of this tree were mere oranges, some of them of an oblong shape like
lemons, some round like common oranges, and some between both. Some
taste like genuine oranges, others have an orange rind but a lemon pulp. Most
are of a very strong scent, and their rind of a very bitter taste. The same tree
bears also a kind of citron-lemon, yet not so many as of the former kind. It
produces also a fruit, that is at once both lemon, citron,, and orange. This fruit
is so diversified, that some of them are half citron-lemon, half orange ; others
have two thirds of citron-lemon, and one of orange ; others, the contrary : and
of all these, some are oblong, some round, some bunchy; some smooth, some
rough ; some small, others large. Their pulp is so distinguished, that where the
orange-pulp ends, that of lemon begins, and on the contrary. Again, the
orange-pulp is narrower than that of lemon ; but this is tenderer than that, and

* Several fishes, both of the East and West Indies are observed to be highly poisonous at certain
particular seasons.f This is probably owing to their having fed on some higliJy acrimonious marine
substances, j

f Such are some species of tetrodon, and of sparus ; the bamicuta;!! the rock-fish (a species of perca) ; the cavellee (a
species of scomber) ; the smooth bottle-fish (a species of ostracion) ; and the most virulent of all, the yellow-billed sprat.

X Violent vomiting is one of the first symptoms with which those who have eaten of these poisonous fishes arc
seized. Another effect is the separation of the epidermis or cuticle in patches or spots about the hands and feet,
which spots continue white in people of colour and of a pale yellow in white people, for life. The best antidotes
against the fish-poison are Cayenne pepper, Madeira, and other powerful cordials. In voyages to remote parts of the globe,
and especially to tropical and southern latitudes, the crews of ships may often prevent the mischievous consequences arising
from the use of the fishes of those seas and rivers, by gutting them immediately after they are taken, and washing them
well in clear water (either salt or freshj before they are dressed.

II The barracuta is a species of esox or pike.

214 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO I675.

less agreeable to the taste than the genuine single fruit. And, which is no less
remarkable, they have either none or very few, or empty seeds. — ^The first
origin of this tree, was by inoculating orange on a citron-lemon stock.

ji4n Account of some Books. N° 114, p. 314.

I. Archimedis Opera; Apollonii Perg. Conic. Libri 4 ; Theodosii Sphaerlca,
methodo nova illustrata, et succincte demonstrata, ab Is. Barrow, e Soc. Regia^
&c. Lon. 1675, in 4to.

The learned author has here delivered these three books in a brief symbolical
method of expression, pursuant to the sense, propositions and demonstrations of
the ancients; unless where he thought fit to enlarge, and otherwise to de-
monstrate some of the propositions from more easy principles of his own ; pur-
suing herein his own former method, in which some years ago, he published an
entire Euclid in 8vo. Besides, this edition contains a new version of Archimedes's
Lemmata, which were not formerly published with the rest of Archimedes's
works ; though to be found in Forster's Miscellanies, and at the end of Joh.
Alph. Borelli's edition of the three latter books of Apollonius's conies. It will
readily be acknowledged, that our author had cause to find fault, as he does,
with the obscurity of Rivalt's edition ; who is also much complained of by
Mydorgius in his Conies, and by Alex. Anderson, in his Mathematical Exercises.

II. Thomas Bartholini Acta Medica et Philosophica Hafniensia Anni 16/3.
Haf. 1675, in 4to.

A continuation of a useful medical and philosophical work, of which a former
volume was noticed in N° 97 of these Transactions.

III. The Epitome of the whole Art of Husbandry, with Additions of New
Experiments thereto belonging: written by J. B. Gent, in 8vo. Lond. 1675.

A Proposal to Noblemen, Gentlemen and others, who are willing to subscribe to-
wards Dr. Morison^s New Universal Herbal, ordering Plants according to a
new and true Method, never published before. N° 114, p. 327.

[For critical remarks on this work, see life of Morison, p. 342, volume I, of
this Abridgement.]

A New Essay Instrument. By Mr. Boyle. N° 115, p. 329.

For many years I had made use of a little glass instrument, consisting of a
bubble, and furnished with a long and slender stem, to compare the specific
gravities of different liquors, by its sinking in them more or less. Afterwards I
applied it to discover the specific gravities of several appended solids, by its
being more or less depressed by them in the same liquor. For it is plain from
liydrostatic principles, that any solid body, heavier than water, loses in the

YOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 215

water as much of the weight it had in air, as water of equal bulk with the im-
mersed solid would weigh in the air. Consequently, since gold is by far the
most ponderous metal, a piece of gold, and one of equal weight of copper, brass,
or any other metal, being proposed, the gold must be less in bulk, than the
copper or brass ; and if both of them be weighed in water, the gold must lose
in that liquor less of its former weight, than the brass or copper : because the
baser metal as well as the gold, grows lighter by the weight of a bulk of water
equal thereto; and the baser metal being the more voluminous, the corres-
ponding water must weigh more than that which in bulk is equal to the gold.
Whence the floating instrument above-mentioned would be made to sink deeper
by an ounce of gold, hanging at it under water, than by an ounce of brass, or
any other metal; which, on account of its greater bulk than gold, losing more
of its weight by the immersion, must needs retain less, and so have less power
to depress the instrument it was fastened to. And this will hold of other
metals that differ in specific gravity.

This instrument may be of glass, copper, silver, or any other solid body,
that is, or may be made, fit to float on the water, with a guinea, &c. hanging
at it, and of a texture close enough to exclude the water. It consists of three
parts ; viz. the ball, the stem, and that which holds the coin.

The ball or round part BCDE, fig. 1, plate ix, if of metal, consists of two
thin concave plates, exactly soldered together in the middle, and at the most
distant points from the juncture, there should be two opposite holes, one in
each plate, for the two other parts of the instrument. This middle part, though
for brevity sake called the ball, should not be exactly round, but of any shape
that shall be found fittest to make the instrument keep an erect posture steadily
in the water ; and it must be greater or smaller as the plates are thicker or
thinner ; but the general rule for its capacity is, that it should contain as much
air as may serve to keep the whole instrument, when loaded, from sinking be-
neath the top of the stem.

The stem A B is to be soldered on to the ball at the uppermost of the two
mentioned holes. It may either be hollow or solid ; but it should be made .very
slender, that the different depressions of the instrument in the water may be
the more notable; and for the same reason it should not be too short, especially
if it be applied to other uses than the examining of guineas.

At the undermost of the two holes in the ball, is inserted and soldered the
screw or stirrup F, fig. 2, which is a short piece of brass with a broad slit in it,
capable of receiving the edge of the guinea, to be fastened in it by a turn or two
of a screw. The stirrup G is made of a piece of wire bent round, and standing
horizontally, that the guinea may be laid on it.

21 6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. . [anNO iGjQ,

It would be convenient that the undermost stem and the screw be made by
itself, that it may be at pleasure thrust on the stem, and taken off again; for by
this means, if the ball of the instrument be made large enough, you may have
room to put on for ballast, as occasion shall require, one, two, or three flat and
round pieces of copper, lead, &c. as fig. 3, with each of them a hole in the mid-
dle, fitted to the size of the stem, so that they may be put on as near the
lower part of the ball as you think fit, and then the screw may be thrust on
after them ; not only to take hold of the coin, or metallic mixture, to be exa-
mined, but to support the thin plates.

To adjust this instrument for examining guineas, which are by far the most
usual gold coins ; hang at the bottom of it, a piece of that coin you know to be
genuine, and having carefully stopped the orifice of the stem, immerse the in-
strument leisurely and perpendicularly into a vessel full of clean water, almost to
the top of the stem, and then letting it alone. If it continue in the same situa-
tion and posture, the work is done; if it emerge, you must add a little weight,
either by putting into the stem, if it be hollow, some dust shot, filings of lead,
or some other minute and heavy body ; or else by putting on the short stem,
that comes out beneath the ball, a flat, round, and perforated piece of lead, of
weight suflicient to enable the guinea to depress the weight as low as it is de-
sired. But if it sink quite under water; then to make it lighter, file or scrape
off^ a little of the ballast plate, and take out some of the weight, put into the
cavity: this being done, a mark H, fig. I, is to be made, just at the place
where the surface of the water touches the stem ; then taking out the instru-
ment, substitute in the place of the guinea, a little round plate of brass, of the
same weight, or a grain or two heavier in the air; and putting the instrument
into the water as before, suffer it to settle, and make another mark I, at the
intersection of the stem, and the horizontal surface of the water.

It may happen, that a falsifier of money may have the skill, by washing or
otherwise, of taking off^ much of the quantity or substance of the guinea, with-
out altering or impairing either the figure or stamp ; and thus the piece of coin
will not be able to depress the instrument to the usual mark, and thereby be
judged counterfeit, when it is indeed but too light. But the balance will soon
resolve the doubt ; for if the suspected coin have in the air its due weight, it
will argue, that its great lightness in water proceeds from its not being of the
requisite fineness. And if it want much of its due weight in the air, it is very
probable that it is washed.

A general way for finding what coins may, or may not be examined, by this
or that particular instrument proposed; first, weigh the piece of gold or silver
in the air, and afterwards in water, and subtract the latter from the former.

VOL. X.j PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 217

In the next place, weigh also in the air and water a piece of copper or brass, if
that be the likeliest to be enoployed in counterfeiting the coin, and observe
their difference : then the less of these differences being subtracted from the
greater, the remainder will show how much the true piece of coin will outweigh
the other in water ; and consequently if so many grains as this remainder
amounts to, being added to the weight of the lighter metal, do make a suffici-
ently manifest depression of it below the mark, it would stay at without that
addition, we may conclude, that probably the difference between a true and
counterfeit piece of coin proposed, will be discoverable by the instrument : but
it may be expedient for those that have frequent occasion to examine various
sorts of coin, to have a several instrument adjusted for each of them.

With this instrument pure tin may certainly be distinguished from such as is
adulterated: for as gold, being the heaviest of metals,* cannot be allayed with
any other, that will not depress the instrument less than gold can do; so tin
being the lightest of metals, cannot be mixed with any other, that will not sink
lower than unmixed tin; still supposing the weight to be the same in the air.

In the same manner may pewter be compared and examined. For having
once observed how much the instrument is depressed by a piece of two, three,
or four drams, or even an ounce weight of pewter, which is known to be good,
and to contain such a proportion of lead in reference to the tin; if you load the
instrument with an equally heavy piece of any other mass of pewter proposed,
and the instrument sink deeper, it will be a sign that the former proportion of
lead may be very probably argued to exceed in the mixture. This instrument
may also assist in making a pretty tolerable estimate of the fineness of gold, and
its different allays with silver, or some other determinate metal. In order to
which the instrument may be fitted to sink to the tip of the pipe, with some
determinate weight of the finest gold, as of 24 carats. But it will be proper,
that this metal in the air be some determinate weight, that is commodiously
divisible into many aliquot parts. Then you may make a mixture that contains
a known proportion of the metal wherewith you allay the gold : as, if it contain
J 9 or 15 parts of gold, and one of silver: and letting the instrument settle in
the water, mark the place where the surface of the water cuts the stem or pipe.
Then putting in another mixture, wherein the silver has a new and greater pro-
portion to the gold ; as if the former be an 18th or 14th part of the latter, you
may observe how much less this depresses the instrument. And thus you may

• Gold was the heaviest of the then known metals ; but platina, (afterwards discovered, and of
which an account will be given in a future volume of these Transactions) surpasses it_, when freed frona
all its impurities, in specific gravity.

VOL. II, F F

ai8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS^ [aNN6 1675.

proceed with as many mixtures or degrees of allays^ as you think fit ; or aS
many as may be conveniently distinguished on the stem : ahvays observing, that
whatever be the proportions of the two ingredients, the weight of the mass in
the air be just the same with that of the pure gold.

By the same method the different allays of pure silver may be examined, on
the mixing of any proportions of copper, or any other metal lighter in specie
than silver. And by the same way, with a slight variation, it will not be difficult
to estimate how much divers coins, whether of silver or gold, are more or less
debased by the known ignobler metal, mixed in the proposed piece. These
estimates, which may be made without much trouble, will come nearer the
truth ; not only than the estimates wont to be made by the touchstone, but
perhaps also than some of those made with trouble and charges.

It may also be used to examine other mixtures, besides allayed coins; and if
the instrument be adjusted to an ounce, suppose of pure copper, it may assist
in making an estimate of the allay of tin, or the quantity of it added oftentimes
to copper, for making different sorts of bell-metal, and of those metallic specula,
whether plane or concave, called steel mirrors ; as also of solders, consisting of
certain proportions of silver and brass or copper; in all which, and divers others,
the discovery of the proportion of the ingredients may, on some occasions, be
useful to tradesmen, as well as agreeable to virtuosi.

On the Swimming Bladders in Fishes, By Mr. Ray. N° 115, p. 349.

I was much pleased and satisfied with the ingenious conjecture I found in
your Transactions of May last, N° 114, concerning the swimming bladders of
fishes; and persuade myself that the author has hit upon their true use, viz. to
sustain or keep them up in any depth of water. For 1 . It has been observed by
some, and I find it in Mr. Willughby's general notes of fishes, that if the
swimming bladder of any fish be pricked or broken, such a fish sinks presently
to the bottom, and can neither support nor raise itself up in the water. — 2. Flat
fishes, as soles, plaise, &c. which lie always grovehng at the bottom, have no
swimming bladders that I could ever find. — 3. In most fishes there is a manifest
channel leading from the gullet or upper orifice of the stomach to the said blad-
der, which doubtless serves for conveying air into it, as may easily be tried by
any one that pleases. But though air may be received into the bladder, yet is
there a valve or some other contrivance to hinder the egress of it; for you shall
sooner break the bladder than force any air out by this channel. Yet in
sturgeons Mr. Willughby has observed, that pressing the bladder, the stomach
presently swelled : so that it seems in that fish the air passes freely both ways.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 21^

Possibly the fish, while alive, may have an ability to raise up this valve, and let
out air upon occasion ; which yet I doubt of, because other animals have no
such faculty of opening any valves made to stop the reflux of fluids. But I
verily think, there is in the coat of this bladder a muscular power to contract
it when the fish lists : for in many fishes it is very thick and opaque, like the
coat of an artery, which has, as Dr. Willis observes, such a muscular power, as
for example in all the cod kind ; in some, v. g. the hake, it is inwardly covered
with a red cameous substance, which I take to be muscular flesh; in others
it is forked at the top, and to each horn has a muscle affixed. Now the mus-
cular force need not be great, being still assisted by the water as the fish de-
scends ; the pressure of the water being much greater at the bottom than at the
top, as appears by the ascending bubble. But whereas it is said, perhaps the
fish can by its sides or some other defence, keep ofF the pressure of the water,
and give the air leave to dilate itself: it may be objected, if it can do so, what
needs then any air bladder ? the cavity of the abdomen may serve the turn.
To which I answer, that this power of dilating the abdomen by the muscles,
may assist fishes to rise, whose natural place is toward the bottom ; and the air
compressed in the bladder dilating itself as the fish ascends, facilitates the action
of the muscles. But those fishes that descend by contracting the bladder,
letting the contracting muscle cease to act, will rise again of their own accord,
the air within dilating itself, as we see in glass bubbles by compression of the
air in them descending, which as soon as the force is removed ascend spon-
taneously. Besides the flat fishes I before-mentioned, all the cartilaginous
kind, as well flat as long, want swimming bladders : what course they use to
ascend and descend in the water, I know not. Many of the eel kind have
swimming bladders ; yet can they hardly raise themselves in the water, by
reason of the length and weight of their tails : I suppose the air-bladder, being
near their heads, helps them to lift up their head and forepart.
Middleton, June 22, 1675.

How to make all Sorts of Plants, Trees, Fruits, &c., grow to an extraordinary
size ; from the Journal des Sgavans, N° 1 1 6, p. 356.

The whole secret consists in sowing all sorts of grains and kernels, in beds
of earth, at the very time when the sun enters into the vernal equinox, and to
take them up when they are strong enough to be transplanted, at the time of
the full moon ; which time is always to be observed, if you would take them up
and plant them again.

pp 2

220 . PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

Advertisements occasioned hy the Remarks printed in N° 1 14, upon Frosts in some
parts of Scotland, differing in their Anniversary Seasons and Force from our
ordinary Frosts in England : of Black Winds and Tempests : of the warm or
fertilizing Temperature and Steams of the Surface of the Earth, Stones, Rocks,
Springs, Waters, (some in some Places, more than other in other Places; J of
Petrifying and Metallizing Waters : luith some Hints for the Horticulture of
Scotland : hy the Reverend and Learned Dr. J. Beal, F. R. S. ; who by Way of
Letter imparted them, to the Editor, N° 11 6, p. 357.

There is no part of these long and uninteresting remarks, that can be of
any use to reprint in this collection.

Extract of Mr. Flamsteed's Letter of July 24, l6y5, to the Editor, relating to
another, printed in N° 110 of these Tracts, concerning M. Horroxs Lunar
System. N° ll6, p. 368.

The commonly received lunar systems, though as little agreeable with nature
as with the heavens, were entertained from one astronomer to another with
little alterations, from the noble Tycho to the author of the Caroline tables:
but when I had found, by many curious and careful measures of the moon*s
diameters, that the heavens would never admit those hypotheses, which made
the diameter of the perigaeon moon in the quadratures larger than the full mooii
on the perigee; and that only the system of Mr. Horrox, which I had found in
Mr. Crabtree's letters, would represent it as observed broadest at full ; and
afterwards that it would accord well with some observations to which the com-
mon tables agreed not within -f of a degree : I thought it might be worth my
labour to adorn it with numbers, that it might be fit for trial as soon as it ap-
peared in public; to which I added an explanation, to be found in the edition
of his posthumous works. This system has been well approved of by several
good astronomers, and Mr. Street has esteemed it so good, that he has printed
a figure of it with the description of his planetary instrument; but without
acknowledging the proper author, or so much as naming him more than once,
and then in such terms as may persuade any person not well acquainted with
Mr. Horrox's works, that he was but some inconsiderable astronomer, and Mr.
Street's print a quite different system. " All, says he, being somewhat different
from the limitations of the theory of Horrox, and tables therewith published.'*
This obliged me, when I found it only different in the position of the libratory
circle, to take notice of it in a letter to Mr. Collins, from whom you received
the information, and with my consent printed the extract of it : in which I de-

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 221

signed nothing but to assert to the dead an invention, which he esteemed the
best he ever made, and which is the chief of his monuments : this had I neglected,
I had been unjust to the dead, whose papers passed through my hands to the
public; nor have, I hope, been at all injurious to Mr. Street in it.

For my assertion concerning his figure of the lunar system was, that the
contrivance of it, for the motion of longitude, was no other than what was taken
from Mr. Horrox's theory, and my explication ; whereby I conceive no man
would understand me of his numbers.

Perhaps he will say, he has transferred the libratory circle from the orbis
magnus to the transverse diameter of the ellipsis. But this is not material,
since the effect is still the same ; and supposing the same diameter of the libra-
tory circle, the same equations will be found, to a second ; so that hereby he
only has gained a pretext to call the system his own, but he has rendered the
case of the libration less intelligible.

He adds, that " he has increased the quantity of the greatest libration 22 min.'*
So that the semi-diameter of the little circle, that shows the variation, may sub-
tend the greater equation of the apogee, the mean eccentricity being radius.
This indeed is an ingenious conceit; yet it amounts to no more than an altera-
tion ; which, whether the heavens will admit of, we may justly question. I find
by Mr. Horrox's papers, that he used at first 12° precisely, but on farther expe-
rience diminished it to 11° 48'.

But the main part of his defence is, that his numbers are not the same with
those published with the Horroxian theory, and therefore the system is not the
same. I argue not how illogical the inference is ; but how little ingenuous, you
may judge, in that he has published only the aforementioned coarse ones, so
that for the eccentricity and variation we must believe him gratis. Nor is it
pertinent what he says concerning the working of proportions in triangles me-
chanically. If he knew how to do it before me, no less did others much longer
before him ; nor am I at all beholden to him for this skill : but if he prefers
calculations before it, to what purpose is this print of the lunar plate, or his con-
tention about it.

A Total Eclipse of the Moon, observed in London, June 26, 1675, by Mr, John
Flamsteed, Astronomer Royal. N°ll6, p. 371.

Beginning of the penumbra 13h. 46m. 40s.

The total immersion 14 56 55

The same observed at Paris by M. Bulliald.

Beginning of the true umbra 13 55 O

The total immersion 15 6 O

222 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNHO 1075,

uin Account of a Book. N° 11 6, p. 373.

The Planter's Manual : Being Instructions for the Raising, Planting, and
Cultivating all sorts of Fruit Trees; whether Stone-fruits, or Pepin-fruits,
with their Natures and Seasons; very useful for such as are curious in Planting
and Grafting. By Charles Cotton, Esq. in 8vo, London, 1675.

Microscopical Observations. By M. Leuenhoeck. N° 11 7, p. 378.

After drying an optic nerve, and making a transverse ^section across it, M.
Leuenhoeck not only observed one hole in it, but several, which made it resemr
ble a leathern sieve; only with this difference, that the holes in the nerve were
not round, no more than they were all of the same size, nor so regularly posited,
as those in a sieve.

He observed the sanguineous globules, that make the blood red, were firmei*
and harder, when his body was much out of order; but afterwards softer, when
his body was in a good state of health. And he is of opinion, that those san-
guineous globules in a healthy body must be very flexible and pliant, to pass
through the small capillary veins and arteries ; and that, in their passage, they
change into an oval figure, re-assuming their roundness, when they come into a
wider space. He observed also, in the clear matter of the blood, figures of a
quadrangular form, which he supposes to be some saline parts.

Optical Assertions concerning tJie Rainhow . By M. Fr. Linus. N°l]7, p. 386.

Translated from the Latin.

1 . Any the smallest drop of rain, illuminated by the sun-beams, emits from
itself a perfect rainbow, not only as to the colours, but also as to their order,
situation, and circular figure, very much resembling that in the heavens.

2. For the sun-beams entering a drop, and, after two refractions and one
reflection, returning again from thence towards the sun, escape out of the drop
all coloured, and endued with the very same colours, as red, yellow, green, blue,
and purple, which are observed in the rainbow.

3. These rays thus coloured, being in rain transmitted to the eye from various
drops illuminated by the sun, cause the vision we have of an iris.

4. There are two rings in each drop, a larger and a smaller, endued with dis-
tinct rainbow colours ; the less of which is distant from the axis, or ray passing
through the centre of the drop, by about 21°; and the larger by 78°. But the
rays incident on the smaller ring, are thence reflected on the greater ; from which
escaping into the air, they are endued with the said rainbow colours.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 213

5. Therefore, these colours arise from the solar beams; but not from them
alone, as was hitherto thought, but also from the rays of the air itself, surround-
ing the solar body.

6. But neither do these colours arise from all the rays, whether solar or aerial,
which enter the drop; but only from such as are emitted from the solar limb
itself, and from the air adjacent to it.

7. But such rays as are thus transmitted from the solar limb, and the neigh-
bouring air, into the drop, do not all belong to the said colours, nor do they
escape coloured; but such only, whose angle of incidence is neither less than
45°, nor greater than 75°.

8. Therefore the rainbow colours proceed from the solar limb and the adja-
. cent air, yet all the five do not immediately flow from thence; but four only,

viz. red, yellow, blue, and purple ; for the green arises from a mixture of the
yellow and blue rays.

g. Therefore these four colours arise from the said limb; though not all
from one and the same part: but two of them from one part of the limb, and
other two from that directly opposite; viz. the blue and purple arise from the
upper limb ; and the red and yellow from the lower.

10. And there seems to be no other reason of this, viz. why from limbs so
very like, dissimilar rays should arise; but that in one case, the aerial limb is
above the solar ; and in the other case, the solar above the aerial. And this
difference seems to be sufficient, because on account of that different situation,
at one time the solar rays may be bent by refraction above the aerial rays ; and
at other times on the contrary, the aerial above the solar.

11. Therefore these colours arise by means of the said refracted rays, yet so
refracted, that by that refraction they are very much crowded together. For
all the rays, from the 45th degree to the 6oth, are in the less ring contracted
into the space of one degree ; into which narrow space, all the rays, from the
60th to the 75th degree, concur by retrogradation.

12. There are as many rainbows at once, as there are spectators.

13. A spectator observes at each moment a different rainbow.

Observations of a Lunar Eclipse, made at Paris, and compared with those made

at London, June 26, l675, 0. S. noticed in Numb. \l6 of these Abridgements,

p. 221. N*" 117, p. 388.

These observations were made by Messrs. Cassini, Picard, and Romer. By
which it appears, that the beginning of the eclipse was at 1 h. 56m. 45 s. after
midnight, and the total immersion, or internal contact, at 3h. 7 m. 45s.

They may be useful for determining the difference of longitude between the

224

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

[anno 1675*

two cities, or places of observation. And another observation, made at Paris,
may be also useful, for the same purpose, which is, that a little before midnight
the same day, viz. exactly llh. Om. l6s. Jupiter's 2d satellite emerged from
the shadow of that planet, by which it had been eclipsed.

The observations of the lunar eclipse, compared for the difference of the two
meridians, with that difference thence deduced, are as follow: —

Observat. D. Flamstedii,

h. m, s,

Pentadactil. tectus 13 55 15

Porphyrites tectus 14 2 20

Sinae limbus primus 14 5 30

iEtnae limb, primus 14 6 0

Besbici limbus prior 14 23 5

Horminius tectus . 14 26 3
Tetigit limbum'i

primum Co- V 14 39 30

rocondometisJ

Tetig. palud. Maeotid. 14 45 0

Mseotis tota tecta 14 15 40

Immersio 14 56 55

Observationes nostrae.

h. m. s.

Idem seu Seleucus 2 6 15

Idem seu Aristarchus 2 12 40

Ejusd. seu Tychonis 2 16 27

Ejusd. seu Copernici 2 1(5 35

Ejusd. s.Manliimed. 2 34 15

Ad eund. seu Dionys. 2 34 15

Ejusd. s.Paludissomni 2 50 20

Eand. s. Mare Casp. 2 55 30
Eadem 3 1 10

Immersio 3 7 42

Dif. Merid.
m. s.
11 0
10 20

10 57

10 35

11 5
10 12

10 50

10 30
10 30

10 47

Vn Damps', and on Worms discharged at the Mouth of Children. By Mr,
Jessop. Communicated by Mr. Lister. N° 11 7, p. SQL

There are four sorts of damps. The first is the ordinary sort. * The signs
of its approach are, the candles burning orbiculary; the flames lessening by
degrees, till they quite go out; and the shortness of breath. I never heard of any
great inconvenience which any one suffered by it, who escaped swooning: but those
that swoon aWay, and escape an absolute suffocation, are at their first recovery
tormented with violent convulsions, the pain of which, when they begin to
recover their senses, causes them to roar out exceedingly. The ordinary remedy
is, to dig a hole in the earth, and lay them on their bellies, with their mouths
in it; if that fail, they fill them full of good ale; but if that fail, they conclude
their case desperate.

The second sort is called the pease-bloom damp, because they say it smells
like pease-bloom. This always comes in the summer time; and those grooves
are not free, which are never troubled with any other sort of damps. I never
heard that it was mortal, the scent perhaps freeing them from the danger of a

* Concerning this and the other Damps, in caverns and mines, see note at p. 16, vol. I, of tliis
Abridgement.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 225

surprise. But by reason of it, many good grooves are not worked in the best
and most profitable time of the year, when the subterraneous waters are at the
lowest. The workmen fancy it proceeds from the multitude of red trefoil flow-
ers, called honey- suckles, with which the limestone meadows in the Peake do
much abound.

The third is the strangest and most pestilential of any. Those who have seen
it (for it is visible) describe it thus: — In the highest part of the roof of those
passages, which branch out from the main groove, they often see a round thing
hanging, about the size of a foot-ball, covered with a skin of the thickness and
colour of a cobweb. If by any accident, as the splinter of a stone, or the like,
this be broken, it immediately disperses itself, and suffocates all the company.
Therefore, to prevent its ill effects, as soon as it is observed, by the help of a
stick and a long rope, they break it at a distance ; after which they purify the
place well by fire before they dare enter it again. To accouivt^r it in some-
degree, they say, the steam which arises from their bodies and the candles,
ascend to the highest part of the vault, and there condenses, and in time has a
film grows round about itj and at length corrupting becomes pestilential.

The fourth, which they also call a damp, is that vapour, which being touched
by their candle, presently takes fire, and giving a report like a gun produces the
like effects, or rather those of lightning.

As to the vomiting of worms: A girl in Shcf^eld, about eight months old,
was taken with violent vomiting fits, which continued about a week, and made
her so weak, that her parents began to despair of her recovery. On giving her
about a pint of wormwood ale, she vomited three hexapodes, of the size and
shape, fig. 4, pi. 9, all very active and nimble. The girl in a short time re-
covered, and was well. The surgeon brought the hexapodes to me; we killed
one of them with trying experiments upon it. Remembering I had seen some
very like them, which devoured the skins of such birds as I kept dried for Mr.
Willughby, I gave each of the surviving hexapodes the head of a shining atri-
capella, which in about five weeks time they eat up, bones, feathers and all,
except the extremities of the feathers and the beaks. Desiring to see what they
would turn into, I gave them a piece of larus, but that it seems agreed not so
well with them, for they died within two days.

I have often been puzzled to account for those phsenomena, commonly called
fairy-circles. * I have seen many of them, and those of two sorts; one sort

* I am satisfied that the bare and brown, or highly cloathed and verdant circles in pasture fields,
called Fairy Rings, are caused by the growth of the agaricus orcades. The largest of one of these
rings, in Edgbaston-park, was 18 feet diameter, and about as many inches broad, in the periphery

VOL. II. G 6

226 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. |^ANNO I675.

bare, of seven or eight yards diameter, making a round path something more
than a foot broad, with green grass in the middle; the others like them, but of
several sizes, and encompassed with a circumference of grass, about the same
breadth, much fresher and greener than that in the middle. But my worthy
friend Mr. Walker, a man not only eminent for his skill in geometry, but in all
other accomplishments, gave me full satisfaction from his own experience.
Walking out one day among some mowing grass, in which he had been but a
little while before, after a great storm of thunder and lightning, which seemed
by the noise and flashes to have been very near him ; he presently observed a
circle, of about four or five yards diameter, the border of it about a foot
broad, newly burnt bare, as the colour and brittleness of the grass-roots plainly
testified. He knew not what to ascribe it to but the lightning. After the grass
was mowed, the next year it came up more fresh and green in the place burnt,
than in the middle, and at mowing time was much taller and ranker.

As to the vomiting of strange worms, Mr. Lister observes, that a boy about
nine years of age, was afflicted with great pain in his stomach, and continual
vomitings. On giving him a powder containing a small quantity of mercurius
dulcis, he vomited up several strange worms, two of which were brought to me at
York, the one dead, the other alive, and which lived many days after it came to
my hands, and might have lived longer, but that I put it into spirit of wine, to
preserve it in its true shape. These worms were very caterpillars, with 14 legs,
viz. 6 small pointed, the 8 middle stumps, and the 2 hind claspers ; something
more than an inch long, and of the thickness of a duck's quill, thin haired, or
rather naked, with brown annuli, and a black head. The very same for kind
that I have often seen on plants, and no doubt these would in due time, if the
place had not hindered, have shrunk into chrysalids, and changed into moths,
as those mentioned by Mr. Jessop would have changed to beetles.

Some Observations made in Scotland^ hy Sir George Mackenzie. Communicated '
by Mr. James Gregory, N° 117, P- SqO.

Of earths I have little to say : only one of our most ordinary soils for barley
in this country, is an earth dry and mixed with dung of cattle. In a place near

where the agarics grew. It had existed for some years. These larger circles are seldom complete.
The large one just mentioned, was more than a semi-circle, but the phenomenon of fairy- rings is not
strictly limited to a circular figure. Where these rings are brown and almost bare, upon digging up
the soil to the depth of about 2 inches, the spawn of the fungus will be found of a greyish white ,
colour; but where the grass has again grown green and rank, I never found any of the spawn existing.
A similar mode of growth takes place in some of the crustaceous lichens, particularly in the lichen
centrifiigus. Withering' s Arrangement of Brit, Plants, vol. 4, p. 222, 3d edition.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 127

me, at Tarbut, there is a plot of ground, less than one acre, out of which for
these many years past earth has been dug for that use; and in two years time it
will grow up again, and fill the excavated place; so that it continually furnishes
soil for the adjacent lands. Another, like this, I have in a farm belonging to
myself, twenty miles distant, of the same nature and quality. Both are a stiff
clayish earth, of a dark colour and moist. Both these places I have viewed these
several years, and have discerned them. It will grow a foot high in two years.
Nothing makes our land give greater increase of barley than sea-weed. But
lands that are often used to this manure yield but bad oats, and small quantity, and
the husks both of the barley and oats that grow on such lands, are thicker than
those that grow on other lands, and these grains have also greater mixture of
darnel.

The increase in some places in the isles is almost incredible, considering the
climate and soil. For some will ordinarily yield l6 or 18 fold. And most of
those lands that yield so well, are of a veiy sandy soil, and only manured with
sea weed. I have a piece of land in Lochbroom parish, that yields continually
every year plentiful crops of barley, without ever having so much as one load of
manure, or any kind of addition laid on it: and this it has done for time imme-
morial. Whether it be, that rains wash down matter equivalent to manure from
the adjacent hills, which yet cannot be discerned, though looked after; or whe-
ther its fertility proceeds from prolific exhalations from a subterraneous cause, I
will not determine.

There are also some fields that appear to be nothing else but a gathering of
small pebbles, insomuch that earth cannot be well discerned amongst them ; yet
do they yield abundance of good corn, especially of barley; and more than conti-
guous lands that are not stony.

As for our herbs, I have nothing extraordinary. All I find here are in history
excepting one, which grows on stony shores ; but because it is not near me, I
will not venture to give you its description now, lest it should be too imperfect.
One particular I took notice of, which perhaps is no novelty to you, as it is none
to our highlanders; but since it is to me, I shall relate it. When they want ink,
they take the root of the iris palustris lutea (yellow water flower-de-luce) and
infuse it 24 hours in clear fountain- water; others boil it a little. Then they
take a rough white pebble, and rub it continually in the water on a knife or any
piece of clean steel ; and in less than an hour's time the water becomes very black,
and tolerably good ink.

Our foresters allege, that when deer are wounded they lie on a certain herb,
which grows plentifully in our forests, and that by its virtue the bleeding is
stanched, and the wound healed. I took a quantity of it, and reduced it to a

G G 2 /

S28 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 675.

salve, with wax and butter. Its effect was, that it healed too suddenly, so that
1 durst not venture to use it in any deep wound: but for superficial scars it has
a very sudden operation. At that time I did not know this herb by any name;
but now I find it to be Asphodelus Lancastriae verus of Johnston, or the Lan-
cashire Asphodil.

It is verv common to find Molucca beans on the shore of the Lewes or our
other western isles. They are found fast to the stalk, which the common people
supposed to be sea tangles, and laughed at me, when I said they were land-beans:
which made me write to the Earl of Seafort, whilst he lived in the Lewes,
that I supposed, these apparent tangles were the haum of the beans, which
by long lying in the sea might acquire that likeness. His lordship exa-
mined the matter and found it so. And he likewise sent to me a piece of a cab-
bage-tree, that was found on that shore. It is observable, that the kernel of
these nuts are often fresh and sound, and the people make boxes for snufF of the
bean husk. Now, considering the situation, of those isles with respect to any
place where Molucca-beans grow, let the observers of tides consider what reci-
procations must be imagined, to adjust the eastern and western constant currents
of the main with the wafting of these beans, on places that lie so far out of the
road of any of the direct tides : and if they grow only about the Molucca isles,
or in no place on this side the equator, it would seem more probable, that they
came by the northern passage, than any other way. And their freshness in the
kernel shows rather that they have been kept in the cold conservatory, than in
the warm baths of the other progress.

Observations made at Barbadoes, by Dr. Thomas Towns. Communicated by Mr,

Lister. N^ 11 7, p. 399.

At Barbadoes, the general draught of wine is from Madeira ; which, contrary
to all other wines, will not endure a cool cellar. Neither French nor Rhenish
wines keep nor agree well with our stomachs, if so constantly drank as in Eng-
land. Canary wine few here care for.

This island is very temperate. For the sun, notwithstanding his neighbour-
hood, is very gentle here, being fanned with a constant gale from the east.

I have heard it questioned, whether America have not some plants common
with those of Europe, especially the more northern parts of it. To the clearing
of this doubt, I observe, that purslane is here all the country over, where I have
been, and even troublesome to the planter. In the fields I have often gathered
a sallad of it : and it eats as well with oil and vinegar as that of our English
gardens. Here is likewise a sonchus, lens palustris ; I found also a melilot, or

TOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 22Q

a plant so like it in all circumstances, except that the branches are not so erect,
that I cannot find any difference from that of England.

The springs here are all near the sea, so that those who live up in the country
have no benefit of them. They made ponds formerly to receive rain; which
served well enough, being kept cool by a broad leaved weed and duck-weed, that
overgrow most ponds. But now almost every sugar-plantation has a well that
yields very good water.

The soil is fertile, though not above a foot or two thick, upon a white and
spongy limestone rock ; which affords good quarries here and there, that serve
for building. Every dwelling-house, with the sugar-work, and other out-houses,
looks like a handsome town ; most being now built with stone, and covered with
tiles or slate, brought hither in the ballast of ships, as are likewise sea-coal for
forges, and so are brought cheap enough. Indeed the whole island appears in a
manner like a scattered town which, with the perpetual green fields and woods,
makes the place very pleasant.

The blood of negroes is almost as black as their skin. So that the blackness
of negroes is likely to be inherent in them, and not caused by the scorching of
the sun, especially seeing that other creatures here, that live in the same clime
and heat with them, have as florid blood as those that are in a cold climate.*

^n Account of some Books. N° WJ, p. 401.

I. Marcelli Malpighii Anatome Plantarum; cui subjungitur Appendix, iteratas
et auctas ejusdem de Ovo Incubato Observationes continens. Lond. 1(575, in fol.

Having given a full account of Dr. Grew's book on the anatomy of vegeta-
bles, at p. (56o, vol. I. of our Abridgement; (between whom and this author
there is a great coincidence), we shall only detail the more remarkable observa-
tions contained in Malpighi's work.

The author begins with the bark, and proceeds to the woody part, and the
knobs, and so on to the fabric of the buds, blossoms, leaves, and seeds : pro-
mising at the end to prepare another work about the roots and excrescences of
plants.

Concerning the bark, he finds it to be made up of several parts, of which
the principal are those he calls ligneous fibres, in his opinion analogous to nerves,
which he says are pipes pervious to a clear liquor; the structure of which pipes
consist in many square partitions, opening into one another. These vessels he
finds to lie neither straight nor parallel, but to be for the most part compacted
like little faggots ; of which some do make a kind of net-work, whereby the

• It is the rete mucosura, not the blood, which is the cause of the blackness of the complexion in
negroes.

230 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I675.

bark becomes to be an aggregate of reticular coats, surrounding the woody part
of the plant: and as to what passes through them, he says, that the juice being
entered into them, is, by the heat of the season striking upon the soil and forcing
up the liquor, made to ascend a little way ; and then by the survening night and
cold stopped for the time, but is again, by the heat of the next day sendirjg up
more juice, thrust up higher from time to time, till it gets to the top, climbing
thither as it were by steps: to which ascent it is marvellously assisted by the
structure of these pipes, being divided into square partitions, opening into one
another, and furnished with something that performs the part of valves, endued
with a spring.

From these pipes, he says, do depend and break forth horizontal ranks of bags
or bubbles, crossing those fibres ; into which bubbles the ascending juice, like a
chyle, is discharged, and being stayed there a while, and mixed with the old juice
there residing, comes to be fermented and convei'ted into aliment.

But besides this preparation of the aliment in the bark, there is another office,
which that part seems to be appointed for; and that is the increase of the bulk
of plants, by adding yearly a coat or ring of fibres, which being interwoven by
the above-mentioned horizontal ranks of bubbles, and by degrees consolidated
and hardened, do put on the nature of wood.

The stem or trunk of plants consists, according to him, of ligneous fibres,
transverse ranks of bubbles, and air-pipes. In young trees, he says, the ranks
of these bubbles pass into the very pith ; which pith is abounding in young
twigs, until by the growth and hardening of the ligneous fibres it wastes away.

The air-pipes, called also by him spiral fibres, are in his opinion, a kind of
silver-coloured plate, wreathed spirally, and so constituting an open hollow pipe,
of a scaly texture, made up of little pipes and bladders, very like the lungs of
insects, admitting contraction and dilatation. Whence he concludes the great
necessity and use of air and respiration in all those creatures that have even but
the least degree of life: which air, he says, is in plants taken in chiefly by the
roots out of the earth, there being no such conspicuous air-pipes in the bark or
leaves, whereas the roots are exceedingly stored with them. This air, contained
in these pipes, and subject to compression and rarefaction, presses by its swelling
upon the contiguous woody fibres and their adhering bubbles, and so squeezes
out their juice into the neighbouring parts; which being relaxed and emptied,
they admit and take in fresh liquor.

Such plants, that instead of clear liquor contain in their fibrous pipes a coloured
juice, have a peculiar vessel, as in the ebulus (dane-wort), fig. 30, and in all
lactiferous and resinous plants, fig. 31. And each plant seems to our author to
have a peculiar vessel to contain and prepare the last specific nourishment for

VOL. X.] ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 231

that plant; such as those, that hold the turpentine and rosin in some trees;
there being as many several sorts of juices as there are species of plants, and
therefore peculiar vessels, preparing the last and proper juice for each respective
plant.

The stems of trees and their branches increase by the external addition of h
new coat of fibres and air-pipes, growing about them every year, and thereby
giving them a new ring of wood.

As to the knobs of plants, they are to our author nothing but the productions
of new offsprings upon a new implication of fibres and air-pipes, for the shooting
out of new leaves, and young sprouts or buds.

A bud is, as it were, the new fcetus or birth of a plant, or a sprout contracted
in small, inclosing a tender woody part, (raised from ligneous fibres and medul-
lar bubbles) and the rudiments of the leaves; which being enlarged by the
moisture and warmth of the spring, extend themselves into the form of a sprout.

The leaves are, to our author, a considerable part of the plant, seeing that all
those parts, that are wrapped up in the stem or trunk, do, when opened in the
extreme and younger parts, break out into leaves ; so that these seem to be
nothing but appendages to the trunk lengthened and opened; the ligneous pipes
and air-vessels, derived from the midst of the woody cylinder of the tender ring,
running together into a bundle, and forming the stalk, and at length upon their
dilatation completing the leaf. The great variety of leaves our author deduces
from the transverse ranks of bubbles appendant to the woody pipes of the stem,
upon the opening of the stalk.

The office of the leaves seems to him very considerable, forasmuch as, in his
opinion, they perform the part of the skin in animals. They (the leaves) are
furnished with all the sorts of vessels to be met vvithin the body of plants, as
air-vessels, woody-fibres, and vessels >of transpiration. This opinion of his, viz.
that the nutritious juice is further concocted in the leaves, he endeavours to
render more probable by the consideration of the little seminal plant, which con-
tains two leaves ; insinuating also, that from the leaves there is a regress of the
concocted juice into the stem, and consequently a peculiar circulation.

Esteeming the branches to be produced for the generation of the vegetable
€ggf he teaches, conformably thereunto, that a blossom or flower is, as it were,
the uterus together with the egg or fcetus of the plant, which in due season is
exposed to the air, to make it grow at length into a new offspring. In explaining
the manner of the production of flowers, and their variety, he is very curious;
as he also is in that of seeds; which latter he observes to be lodged in divers
cases or caskets, performing the office of an uterus and the parts thereof. And
seeing the seed grows in very many plants to an edible fruit, he describes the

232 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

Structure and parts of several fruits, viz. figs, cherries, grapes, pears, citrons,
lemons, oranges, &c. &c. taking notice of the singular apparatus, formed by
nature for the sake of the seed, which he calls the foetus and the true compen-
dium of a plant, made up of all the principal parts thereof.

But his observations about galls, and other excrescences and appendages of
trees, he reserves for another discourse, shortly noticing, however, that those
excrescences are not the wombs, in and by which, trees and other plants produce
insects ; but only the nests of the egg cast there by the animal parent, and not
at all furnished by the plant itself.

Concerning the uses of the several parts of plants above described, he offers
his opinion, but with great diffidence, acknowledging it difficult not to be mis-
taken therein.

Thus far respecting this author*s anatomy of plants : touching his appendix of
incubated eggs, he therein shows, with what care he has repeated his former
observations upon that subject; though he still scruples to determine, which of
these two, the heart or the blood, has the priority of existence in the formation
of a chick: this only being certain to him, that there may be observed the first
lineaments of the chick even before incubation, and that afterwards, by virtue
of the incubation, there are first manifested the vertebrae, and the beginnings
of the brain and the spinal marrow, together with the wings, and some flesh ;
the heart, vessels, and blood, yet lying then concealed: but yet, because that
some rivulets do appear in the umbilical area, he thinks it probable, that the
heart is then also appendant to the carina of the chick, he having seen the heart
before the 30th hour : but it is a considerable time, he says, before the liquor
passes through the heart and the vessels ; which liquor he has observed to be first
of a yellowish, then of a ruddy, and at last of a blood-red colour. Whence he
a^ain offers his conjecture, that the liquor, the vessels and the heart do exist
before the blood.

II. Epistola ad D. Joelem Langelotum de Alcali et Acidi Insufficientia ad
gerendum munus Principiorum Corporum naturalium: Conscripta a Job. Bohn,
Phil. etMed. D. in Acad. Lipsiensi. Lip. Anno 1675, in 8vo.

A chemical dissertation to disprove (what none will now maintain) the suffici-
ency of that doctrine, which ascribes the production of the principal phasnomena
in nature to the congress and conflict of two principles, an acid and an alkali.

III. Zymologia Chymica, or a Philosophical Discourse of Fermentation,
from a New Hypothesis of Acidum and Sulphur; with an additional Discourse
of the Sulphur Bath at Knaresbrough : by W. Sympson, M. D. Lond. 1675,

in 8vo.

In the chemical writings of Dr. Sympson, we have before had occasion to

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 233

remark, there is nothing worthy of notice. [Concerning the Harrowgate, or
Knaresboroiigh mineral waters, seethe Bishop of Llandaff's observations, in the
76th vol. of the Phil. Trans. Great pains were bestowed upon their analysis by
the late Dr. Garnett, who published a treatise upon them in 1794.]

A summary Relation of the Attempts made for a North-East passage. N° 118,

p. 417.

It is sufficiently known to those who have made any Inspection into the navi-
gation of this and the former age, how solicitously the States of the United
Provinces have laboured to encourage those, who should first discover a more
compendious and shorter passage by the north, to China, Japan, and other
eastern countries. But those who first ventured on this enterprise, found by
sad experience, that the success did not answer their expectation and hopes.

Those who immediately succeeded them in that adventure, were not much
more successful ; for treading the same steps that the former had done, they
were involved in the same difficulties ; being misled by an opinion, that
that part of the sea, which lies between Nova-zembla and the continent of Tar-
tary, was passable, and that they might sail through that to China. But it is
now well known to the Muscovites and others, that Nova-zembla is no island,
but a part of Tartary ; to which it is annexed on the east by a large neck of land,
that the arm of sea, into which there is a passage through the Weigath-straits,
is not really sea, but a lake of fresh water; the great abundance of rivers, which
out of Asia empty themselves into this gulf, causing this freshness; so that it
is not to be counted strange, if, especially in the winter season, these w-aters are
strongly frozen.

Nor is it to be wondered at, that the navigation of William Barentz, other-
wise an experienced mariner, was unsuccessful, who passed along the coast of
Nova-zembla, as far as the 77th deg. of N. latitude: for it is well known, that
most of those northern coasts are frozen up many leagues; though in the open
sea it is not so; no nor under the pole itself, unless by accident, as when on the
approach of summer, the frost breaks, and the ice which was near 40 or 50
leagues off the shore, breaks off from the land and floats up and down in the sea.
These prodigious floats of ice were the chief obstruction to those that directed
their course somewhat more to the north.

Some years since, certain merchants of Amsterdam attempted those seas with
much better success than the former. Having advanced to the 79th or 80th
d^g. of northern latitude, they passed above a hundred leagues to the east of
Nova-zembla. These being returned to their own country, with great hopes

VOL. II. H H

234 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. (^ANNO l675.

of finding encouragement to make further discoveries, petitioned the States
General that they would be pleased to grant the aavigation of the northern seas,
and of the eastern, not yet discovered, to them. — But the governors of the
East India Company, being sensible how nearly this concerned them, presented
a counter petition, desiring that the petition of the said merchants might for
the future be referred to them and their consideration. — The merchants finding
their petitions thus crossed, they addressed themselves to the King of Denmark,
who immediately granted their demands. Under his protection therefore they
equipped two or three ships, such as they judged most proper for this voyage.
On which the governor of the Dutch East India Company raised a considerable
sum of money, and easily persuaded the mariners to desist from so dangerous a
voyage, as they represented it; and that the merchants might have no just cause
to complain of the said company, the mariners went to sea ; but neglecting the
directions and orders of those merchants, they steered their course directly for
Spitzberg, took in their lading of fish, and returned home.

Upon which the East India Company omitted nothing to find out a passage
through the north-eastern sea, for those who were to return into Europe from
the East Indies. — ^There was then much discourse of the Gulf of Anin, by which
a passage was said to be open into the Tartarian Sea : and they had some hints
from the people of Japan and the Portuguese, about the country of Jezzo,
which lay above Japan. But not resting satisfied with the bare relation, in the
years l652 and 1 653, they sent out some skilful persons to discover those
coasts ; who passing beyond Japan, the 50th degree of N. latitude, arrived on
the coast of Jezzo, wViere they fell into a narrow sea, yet broad and convenient
enough to lead into the Northern Ocean. The opposite shores they called i^et
CoiTlliilgntC Intlb, and an island seated in the middle of the gulf they called J^ct
^tatcn <lB0antl» — Whether this land of Jezzo be annexed to Japan or not, the
inhabitants of both countries doubt ; because vast and inaccessible mountains
interpose, which hinder the communication. Neither does it as yet clearly ap-
pear, whether this land of Jezzo be a part of Tartary, or whether by an arm of
the sea divided from it. The Chinese affirm, that Tartary runs 300 China
leagues eastward beyond their famous wall : so that if we follow these, the
country of Jezzo and Japan may seem to be annexed to Tartary ; but those of
Jezzo say, that there runs an arm of the sea between them and Tartary : which
opinion may seem to receive some confirmation from what those Hollanders
affirm, who were shipwrecked some years since on Corea, a peninusula of China,
where they saw a whale, upon whose back stuck a harping-iron of Gascony. It
is therefore most probable, that this whale passed from Spitzberg through the
nearest arm of the sea, rather than through the more remote. — After the ex-

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 235

periments made by the governors of the East India Company, in the years l652
and 53, they resolved to proceed no further on the discovery ; as well because
the Emperor of Japan interdicted the navigation of foreigners into Jezzo, in re-
gard, as they say, of the vast tribute which he annually raises from the silver
mines there ; as because they thought it may little conduce to their advantage,
to have this compendious way of navigation discovered. And therefore they
have thought fit to prohibit all further search into the navigation to Jezzo, and
the adjacent countries ; for which very reason they have also endeavoured to
conceal their Austral plantations.

Now concerning that tract or space which lies between Spitzberg, Nova-
zembla, and the Straits of Jezzo, we have no reason to entertain any doubt ; espe-
cially as many of the Muscovite itineraries assure us, that the coast of Tartary
runs not northward from Nova-zembla, but turns very much towards the east ;
so that the head land of Nova-zembla is far the most northern part of all
Tartary.

It remains now to inquire by what course, and in what season of the year,
this voyage is best to be undertaken ? It is hardly to be doubted, but that the
strait which lies between Spitzberg and Nova-zembla may be passed ; and the
course to be directed to 78, 79, or 80 degrees of north latitude. If any shall
proceed farther in the same work, he will find the passage shorter ; for drawing
a line from our seas through the 78th or 79th degree of latitude, to the Strait
of Jezzo, it will be very near a straight line : but if any would, from the same
degree of latitude, having passed Nova-zembla, choose to steer toward the coast
of Tartary, and coast along by it, till he meet with some strait, he would find
his course somewhat longer, but perhaps safer and better.

As to the time of the year, wherein this navigation ought to begin ; it may
be in the beginning of the spring, viz. in the month of March, when it is con-
fessed by most men, that the winds and seas are favourable to those that sail to
Spitzberg, and the places near the pole; and that they may run all that course
from these parts in 12 or 13 days: but when they have passed so far, if any
man would design to sail to the Straits of Jezzo, he must steer his course to-
wards the south. But then those motions of the winds and seas, which were
favourable to those who sailed northward, will be contrary to those who stand
southward ; and they may long enough expect northern gales, which seldom
blow till towards the latter end of summer, viz. in the month of August. If
therefore any man would contrive to dispatch his voyage in the shortest time, it
would be safest to make choice of that time of the year, where he might soonest
make Spitzberg and return again, which might be in the beginning of summer :
yet it would be safer to set out sooner, if the wind permit. And although this

HH 2

236 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

course should happily succeed, it follows not that I should advise them to ob
serve the same in their return homeward ; for things of that nature must be left
to the prudence and conduct of discreet pilots and mariners, who ought to shun
all near approach to the coasts and islands which they shall encounter, for fear
of the ice; and that they always make choice of the most open seas, which are
least infested with it, and in which the colds are more moderate. For experi-
ence has sufficiently taught, that whole large seas are never known to be frozen,
but only the sea coasts, from the plenty of fresh waters that run into the ocean,
and the snows melted in it. And the same experience has taught, that there is
not that danger from the floating ice, as is vulgarly apprehended, especially in
seas not subject to violent storms, and in the 6th or rather the 8th month of
the year.

When the nature of this sea, and of its several straits shall be more per-
fectly discovered, it is not to be doubted but that the whole voyage to Japan
may be performed in five or six weeks at the most. But in case it should
happen, that the ships should be forced to winter there, this might be done
without much danger; provided they avoided the unadvised example of the
Dutch, who being necessitated to pass the winter in the most northern climates,
planted themselves there upon the highest lands, in huts framed of thin boards;
whereas they ought to sink their houses under ground, and to heap much earth
over them ; since it is scarcely possible for men to subsist in such an excessive
severity of winter, unless they shelter themselves deep under the earth.

Extract of a Letter from a Spanish Professor of Mathematics, proposing a New
place for the first Meridian, and pretending to evince the Equality of all Na-
tural Days, as also to show a Way of knowing the true Place of the Moon.
JVith an Answer to the same hy Mr. Flamsteed. N° 118, p. 425, &c.

In this letter, the Spanish professor pleads for the propriety and convenience
of all nations adopting some common place, as a first meridian, from whence all
nations might count their longitudes: a thing which never could be accom-
plished ; but, instead of which, all astronomers have, and probably always will,
compute the longitude from the meridian of their own observatories. — He next
would persuade us, from observations made with his own pendulum clock, that
all the natural days are of equal length in all seasons throughout the year, and
consequently that there is no such thing as the equation. of time. This is easily
refuted by Mr. Flamsteed, who proves the inequality of the days, and the
equation of time, both on account of the obliquity of the ecliptic, and of the
earth's unequal motion in her elliptical orbit. Nor does Mr. Flamsteed think

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 237

more favourably of the professor's instruments, or lunar observations, which he
'shows are very erroneous.

jin jiccount of two Books. N° 118, p. 435.

I. Jacob! Barneri, Ph. et Med. D. Augustani, Prodromus Sennerti* Novi,
sen Delineatio Novi Medicinae Systematis, &c. Augustae Vindelicorum. An.
1674, in 4to.

The works of Sennertus being in the library of most physicians, it would be
superfluous to insert an account of his system here.

II. A Description of Helioscopes, and some other Instruments, made by
Robert Hook, F. K.S. London, 1675, in 4to.

Of the contents of this book, as far as they relate to the instruments therein
described, I need say nothing here : I shall only touch upon some passages
in the postscript, in which I find one of our tracts concerned. The post-
script takes the liberty of reflecting on a passage in N° 112 of these Trans-
actions, viz. about the invention of applying a spring to the balance of a watch ;
finding fault with the same for not having noticed, that " this invention was
first found out by an Englishman, and long since published to the world," and
complaining thereupon of '' unhandsome proceedings."

As the former part of this accusation directly concerns the editor of the
Transactions, and the latter is so ambiguously worded, as that it may be re-
ferred to the said author, as well as to the French Journal des Scavans, it was
thought fit to acquaint the impartial and candid reader with the plain truth of
this matter.

It is certain then, that the describer of the helioscope, some years ago,
caused to be actually made some watches of this kind, yet without publishing to
the world a description of the same in print; but it is as certain that none of
those watches succeeded, and that nothing was done since to mend the in-
vention, and to render it useful, that we know of, until M. Huygens sent
hither a letter, dated Jan. 30, 16-^, acquainting us with an invention of his of

♦ This celebrated teacher of physic, who, from being the son of a shoemaker, came to be rector
of the university of Wittemberg, and physician to the Elector of Saxony, v/as bom at Breslaw in
1572, and died at Wittemberg in l637, aged 65, during the prevalence of a pestilential epidemic of
which he caught the infection. His collected works amount to 2 volumes folio. They exhibit a view
of the opinions and observations of philosophical and medical writers from the days of Hippocrates
and Aristotle unto the beginning of the 17th century. There is more of erudition than of originality
in his works, and some will doubtless think that he occupied himself too much witli the doctrines of
the ancients. He promoted, however, the cultivation of chemistry in Germany, being the first who
read lectures on that branch of experimental knowledge in the university of Wittemberg. Anaong
the practical dissertations of Sennertus, those on fevers are esteemed the best.

1238 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO iS/S.

ver)^ exact pocket watches, the nature and contrivance of which he imparted to
us, as he used to do other inventions of his, in an anagram ; which he soon
after in a letter of Feb. 20, l6^, explained to us by a full description ; for which
the Royal Society thought fit to return him thanks, yet so as to intimate to him,
that Mr. Hook had some years ago invented a watch of the like contrivance.

Not long after this there came over, in the Journal des Scavans, a printed
description of M. Huygens's invention, with a delineation of the figure of the
same, which the editor of the Transactions produced at the public meeting of
the Royal Society ; where M. Hook not only saw it but took a copy of the
figure itself at the same time, unwilling to let the person who presented it there
take it home without permitting him first to copy it. Which done, M.
Huygens's explanation of his own way, with the figure of it, was, at his desire,
printed the lith of March l6^, in N° 112 of the Transactions; the describer
of the helioscope well knowing, that it was designed to be published in one of
those Tracts ; who, if he had given to the author of them the least intimation,
importing that he desired notice might be taken at the same time of his inven-
tion of the like kind, it would have been certainly done, as has been done on
other occasions, witness several of the same tracts, wherein divers discoveries
of this accuser have been formerly both printed, and vindicated from the
usurpation of others ; though indeed it was not necessary it should there be
done now, since the said animadversor could speak for himself in print as soon
as he pleased, as having laudably made use of late of the press for publishing
himself his own inventions.

This is the plain truth of the matter, in which, whether there be any thing
on the part of the editor of the Transactions, that deserves that name of '^ un-
handsome proceedings," he very willingly leaves to all ingenuous readers to
judge: besides it might justly be considered, that pregnant and inventive heads,
well versed in mathematics and mechanics, and furnished with a genuine method
of investigation, may, and often do, fall upon the same discoveries and inven-
tions about the same time, especially if their minds have been long addicted to
and engaged in the same researches: of which, if there be occasion, several con-
siderable instances may be produced to verify the assertion. One of which, and
fit to be noticed at present, is, that when the editor of the Transactions lately
showed to the accuser that way of M. Leibnitz, concerning exact portable
watches, which was printed in N° 1 1 3 of these Tracts, he acknowledged that
though he had known that way too, ever since An. l66o, yet he never declared
it to any body, and therefore could not say M. Leibnitz had taken it from him.
Thus I shall dismiss him, not doubting, but that all candid readers will blame
him for the expression he uses p. 30 of his said postscript, which is, that he

rOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 239

** forbears now to mention any further the carriage of the writer of the Trans-
actions in this affair :" and only adding, that if this writer of mechanics shall
think fit to explain what he means by it, he will certainly meet with a full
answer, vindicating the integrity of the editor in such a manner, that all im-
partial and good men shall be abundantly satisfied with it.

Pneumatical Experiments made with the. uiir-pump. By M. Huygens and

M. Papin* N° IIQ, p. 443.

To mix several liquors together by means of the air-pump, two small glasses
were employed, one of which could enter into the other, and the least of them
was fastened to the hook of an iron-wire, passing through a small hole in the
top of the receiver, and tied close about with an eel-skin ; and the larger glass
set under it; and the said wire was so ordered till the recipient was exhausted.
Then, by means of the iron wire, the small glass was let down into the larger,
till the liquors they contain mixed themselves. Thus, some aquafortis was
poured into the upper glass, and spirit of wine into the lower, and the receiver
was so well exhausted of the air, that the spirit of wine boiled up with large
bubbles, and the aquafortis emitted some small bubbles. After both these
liquors were well purged of air, the upper glass was sunk into the lower, so
that the spirit of wine was mingled with the aquafortis; when there was yet seen
a very considerable ebullition.

Now, in order to know whether the aquafortis imparted to the spirit of wine
some new vigour, or force, to make it bubble ; some aquafortis was mixed with
spirit of wine, without the receiver; the quantity of the former being somewhat
more than that of the latter. This mixture being put in vacuo, instead of boil-
ing up more strongly than the spirit of wine, as it was thought it would have
done, it only cast up some few bubbles: which showed that the ebullition which
was seen when they were mixed within the vacuum is of the same nature with all
those that are made of acids and alcalies. For in the very instant of mixture,
they make great ebullitions, but soon after they destroy each other, and lose the
properties they had before. It is also probable, that the aquafortis and the
spirit of wine would boil always when they are mingled, were it not that the
pressure of the air prevents this ebullition from being sensible, and appears only
when that pressure is removed.

It was also found, that the solution of common salt boils when mixed in vacuo

* This was Nicholas Papin, author of the celebrated digester, for making soup of bones, and of
some ingenious books, as well as several papers inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, volume
10, 15, l6, 24. His uncle Nicholas, and his cousin Isaac, were also learned French philosophers.

240 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

with spirit of wine, and the solution of saltpetre still more. The same experi-
ment was also made with common water, mixed in vacuo with aquavitag purged
of air, when the ebullition was also found to be very great. It is somewhat re-
markable, that common water mixed with aquavitae, and put within the vacuum,
bubbles up very well, though the former be there in greater quantity than the
latter; whereas, a mixture of aquafortis and aquavitae did not there bubble up at all.

In order to know whether these ebullitions produced any new air; a gauge
was put into the receiver, which is a glass tube, filled either with water freed of
air or with mercury, 4 inches long; and it was observed, that when the liquors
were mixed together, the water in the gauge rose very nimbly to the top ; and
then exhausting this new air, the gauge, water subsided again by degrees, in
like manner as when the common air is drawn out: and thus it was found, that
all these kinds of ebullition produce an air which expands itself like common air.*

It seems remarkable, that the air produced by these ebullitions, is not all of
the same nature. For it has been found experimentally, that the air formed by

* On this occasion it may be noticed, as it is recorded in the journal book of the Royal Society,
An. 1668, April 30, that Mr. Boyle gave an account to the said Society of the experiments he had
then made about generating new air, or extricating that air which was lurking before in several
bodies : at which time he mentioned also some ways of examining whether the substance thus pro-
duced be true air or not. And long before that time, viz. An, 1664, the 15th of March, as appears
by the same journal, Mr. Boyle mentioned to the Royal Society that corals or oyster shells pounded,
and put into distilled vinegar, might prove fit substances to produce air wholesome for breathing. At
which time he also proposed, that some fit animal might be put into a receiver of his exhausting
engine, and the air pumped out till the creature grew sickish ; and that then some new air might be
produced in the receiver by a contrivance of making distilled vinegar work upon tlie substances be-
fore-mentioned J to see whedier by this means die animal would recover.

About the same time Sir Christopher Wren also suggested, to put a. fermenting liquor in a glass
ball, and to fit a stop-cock to it, and tie a bladder about the top of the stop-cock, by which means
the air, to be generated by the fermenting liquor, would pass into the bladder, and on the turning of
the stop-cock be kept there in the form of air, Mr, Hook also mentioned several liquors, which by
their working on one another would produce an air 3 as oil of tartar and vitriol j spirit of wine and
turpentine. And he made before the Royal Society the foUowing experiment : He took a common
glass phial with two pipes, and some pounded oyster shells and aquafortis ; and as soon as the latter
was by one of those pipes poured on the former, and the hole stopped with good cement, the
ebullition caused by the shells being corroded by the aquafortis, in a very little time blew up the
bladder, tied on to the other pipe, so as to swell it very plump with air ; which expansion remained
till the Society rose, after they had ordered the vessel to be carefully locked up till their next meet-
ing, which being tlie week after, the bladder was then found somewhat shrunk. The like experi-
ment was made with bottled ale, supposed to yield a more wholesome air for respiration, &c, — ^Orig.f

f The elastic fluid extticated in the instances mentioned in this note is not common or atmospheric air, but fixed air
or carbonic acid gas ; a species of air unsuited to the purposes of respiration, and even deleterious to animals that are
placed in an atmosphere of it and compelled to breathe it, though but for a short space of time.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 241

the mixture of aquafortis and copper,* remains always air, and always keeps up
the water in the glass at that height to which it first raised it ; but on the con-
trary, the air produced by the mixture of oil of tartar and oil of vitriol,-|- almost
all vanishes of itself in 24 hours. — On mixing equal parts of aquafortis and aqua-
vitas, and putting two equal quantities of the mixture in two small glasses, with
two equal bits of iron, one in each, and including one of the glasses in vacuo,
there was seen a very great ebullition, and the liquor became black ; whilst the
other glass that was left without the receiver, made no ebullition, but remained
always transparent, or rather white than black. After these two glasses had
stood 1 2 hours, the iron in the glass in vacuo was almost all dissolved, whereas
the other was very little diminished. This experiment succeeds quite the con-
trary when made with aquafortis alone and copper ; for then the solution is less
within the vacuum than without it.

Oil of olives makes no ebullition, neither with vinegar nor with spirit of wine,
when they are just mixed, either in vacuo or out of it. But having mixed to-
gether without the receiver, some of that oil and vinegar and spirit of wine, and
put this mixture in vacuo, it did not boil up so soon as when there was no oil ;
but then the bubbles, which it afterwards made were larger, and they began to
appear again from time to time, so that some of them were seen a quarter of an
hour after the receiver had been exhausted. Possibly this may be owing to the
oil swimming on the top, retaining the more volatile parts of the spirit of wine,
which would otherwise fly away as soon as the air is begun to be pumped out,
and at the same time hinders the surface of the liquor below from easily rising
up into bubbles; because to make them do so, the parts of the oil that stick
close to each other must be separated. When therefore the volatile parts are col-
lected in a sufficient quantity, able to surmount the resistance which the oil makes
to it, they issue out with greater violence than if nothing had detained them.

All these ebullitions hitherto spoken of, are greater in vacuo than in the
open air : but it is not so with lime. For taking two equal glasses with two
equal quantities of water, and putting the one of them in vacuo, the other in
the open air, there was let fall into both at the same time two equal parcels of
lime, one into each ; and it appeared, that that which was in vacuo did indeed
throw up some large bubbles, but yet fewer of them than that which was in the
air : and having taken it an hour after out of the receiver, and stirred the lime,

* The aeriform body thus produced by die action of aquafortis on copper, was nitrom gas. It
appears, therefore, tliat the discovery of this species of permanently elastic fluid is due to the authors
of the above related experiments, to which Mr. Boyle's previous pneumatical inquiries had served as
a clue.

-}• Fixed air or carbonic acid gas,

VOL. II. I I

242 rHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16? 5,

it was found to have only the consistence of dirt, whereas the other had the
consistence of slacked lime. The reason of which may perhaps be, that the
volatile salts of the lime may exhale while the receiver is exhausting.

Some plaster of Paris was also slacked in vacuo, and the ebullition of it there
appeared much more than in the open air. When it is not touched, the bubbles
that issue out leave large holes in it, and then it settles very uneven ; but taking
care to stir it till the bubbles escape, and pressing it when it begins to settle, it
becomes very smooth, and has fewer little holes than the common plaster.

An Account given by a French Author, (Denys Papin) in his Booh on the Origin
of Fountains, printed 1674, at Paris ; to show that the Rain and Snow-waters
are sufficient to make Fountains and Rivers run perpetually. N° 11 9, p. 447.

In order to give a gross estimate of the quantity of rain,* compared with the
quantity of water running away in springs and rivers; it will be first necessary to
agree on the way of measuring these two sorts of water. Some persons say,
that a cubic inch of water yields, in 24 hours running, 144 muids, (the name
of a French measure, holding 280 French pints ;) others say it yields but 70 of
that measure. But I have reason to believe that it yields 83 of this measure ;
and it is known that a vessel of two feet deep, long and broad, holds one muid
of water.

This being supposed ; it follows, that a vessel which contains 83 muids of
water, is able to furnish in 24 hours as much as will make an inch of water run
continually. So that, if a conservatory should hold 3378 muids of water, it
would furnish for a whole year a sufficient quantity to make an inch of water
run constantly. And if it were as large again, it would furnish two running,
and so on in proportion. Then for the measure of the rain and snow water ; I
have found that from October 1668, to October 1669, there had fallen so
much of it, as amounted to the height of 18 inches 7 lines; and from the same
month of 1670 to the same month 1671, there had fallen only so much as came
to the height of 84- inches ; and from January 1673 to January 1674, to the
height of 274- inches. Of which, taking the medium, we have 19 inches and

* The like to which has been attempted here, and proposed to the Royal Society some years since,
by Sir Christopher Wren, who, by the contrivance of a rain-bucket, had taken an account of all the
water that fell for a considerable time j and by his weather-clock had, among other particulars, not
only taken in the measuring of the quantity of rain that falls, but also the time when it falls, and
how much at each time. Which instrument, if put into practice, would be of excellent usej foras-
much as it may also serve, by some additions rnade to it by M. Hook, to record tlie weight of the
air, the drought, moisture, heat and cold of the weather, the sun-shine, the quarters and strength of
the winds : and all this to be performed by only one motion, driving all the parts of tlie instrument^
which is therefore the more considerable, tliat of itself it records its own effects. — Orig.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 243

24- lines. This supposed, we must for our purpose measure, or make an esti-
mate, of some river, as it runs from its very source to a place where some rivu-
let enters into it, and see whether the rain water that falls about its course, if it
were put into a large reservoir, would be sufficient to make it run a whole year.

I have observed the River Seine, in its course from the source of it unto
Ainay le Due, where a rivulet enters that swells it. And this I shall take for
the subject of the examination I intend to make. — ^The course then of this river,
from its spring to the said Ainay le Due, is about three leagues long, and the
sides of its course extend themselves on the right and left about two leagues on
each side, where there are other little rivers that run another way : and since
these rivulets require water to maintain them, as well as the Seine, I shall count
but half that space of the sides, and say, that the place where the Seine passes,
has, from its source to Ainay le Due, three miles long, and two miles broad.
So that, if a reservoir were made of this size, it would be 6 leagues square in
surface, which being reduced to fathoms, it would according to the measure
abovementioned, make 31-^ millions of fathoms in surface. In this conservatory
imagine, that during a whole year, there has fallen rain to the height of 19
inches 2^ lines, as before said; this height of 19 inches and 2^ lines gives
nearly 281 millions of muids of water. — All this water thus collected, in the
quantity just now expressed, is that stock which is to serve to make the river
run for a whole year, from its source to the place before named, and which
must also serve to supply other occasions and losses, such as are the feeding of
trees, herbs, vapours, and extraordinary swellings of the river while it rains, and
the deviations of the water running another way.

Concerning the measure or estimate of the water of this rising river, it would
be difficult to determine it precisely, as well as what quantity it furnishes. Yet,
so far as I was able to judge, it can have no more than 1000 or 1200 inches
of water always running, compensating the less quantity it has at its source
with the greater it has towards Ainay le Due : which I so judge by the com-
parison I make of these waters with those of the river of the Gobelins, in the
state of it near Versailles, where it has 50 inches of water, according to the
measure taken of it. So that I judge it will be enough to allow 24 or 25 times
as much to our river. For the channel of it is to be 4 or 5 fathoms broad, and
is but shallow.

These particulars being thus supposed, then, according to the measures agreed
on, 1200 inches of water furnish in 24 hours, after the rate of 83 muids of
water to an inch, 99600 muids of water ; hence, in a whole year, which is
near 366 times as much, they will furnish near 36-i- millions of muids. This
river then sends away within its banks in a year, no more than about 36^

I i2

244 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

millions of muids of water. But taking this quantity out of the 281 millions
that are in the conservatory above described, there will remain yet above
188* millions of muids, which amounts to almost five times as much, and
which serves to furnish for the losses, diminutions, and other wastes, above
noticed. So that there needs but the sixth part of the rain and snow-water that
falls in a year, to run continually through the whole year.

On Damps in Mines. By Mr, Jessop. N^lig, p. 450.

Damps are most generally observed to come about the latter end of May, and
to continue during the heat of summer ; and in those places which have damps
all the year long, yet they observe them to be most violent at that season. — I
never heard of damps that kindled of themselves, although I have been told,
that in some places they have been kindled by the motion of the sled, in which
they draw their coals. — Damps generally are held to be heavier than the air ;
but this was manifestly lighter, for it lay towards the top of the bink. — On the
breaking of the fulminating damp there proceeds a dark smoke of the smell and
colour of that which proceeds from fired gunpowder.

Some damps will quite extinguish all those fires that are let down into them,
be they never so many successively, or never so great ; and fire is observed to
be so far from curing, that it often creates damps in places not otherwise sub-
ject to them. Indeed they are a present remedy, if by their means a circulation
of air through the infected place can be made, otherwise they do hurt ; and
those grooves in which they are forced to break their rocks by the help of great
fires, are seldom free from damps. — Damps are common both in dry and wet
grounds. — Damps are observed to be most pestilential, and to kill the soonest,
that are in grooves not stirred for many years ; especially if such grooves have
formerly had great fires in them.

The general opinion of the workmen is, that there are some damps which
kill by reason of the noisome steam. For they say there is no groove that wants
air, be it never so deep ; but the air stagnating in very deep grooves or pits,
the grosser parts must needs at length separate themselves by their own weight,
and subsiding to the bottom, there corrupt, and consequently get malignant
qualities, especially in the summer time, when the sun promotes the fermenta-
tion.— Damps will often follow the water, and particularly this sort of fiery
damp.'l'

* There is some mistake in these numbers, as 2444- would remain.

f Concerning the nature of these damps, see volume I, p. l6, of this Abridgement.

VOL. X.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 245

All Account of some Books. N" 119, p. 454.

I. A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the Improvement of it for
Vegetation and the Propagaton of Plants. By J. Evelyn, Esq. F.R.S. Lond.
An. 1676, in octavo.

The author first describes what he means by earth ; then endeavours to show
the several sorts and kinds of earth, as they reside in their several beds, with
the indications, by which we may discover their qualities and perfections ; and
lastly, how we may best improve it to the uses of the husbandman, the forester,
and the gardener. — In the second part, he not only notices the fitness of our
senses in giving their verdict of the several qualities of earths ; but also acquaints
us with the microscopical examination he has made of divers sorts, both of
earth and soils or dungs. — In the third part he teaches first, how we may im-
prove the best earths, and apply remedy to the worst, only by labour, stirring,
ventilating, shading and reposing ; which being the least artificial, approach
the nearest to nature : where he notes among many other excellent particulars,
that the bare raking and combing only of a bed of earth, different ways, may
diversify the annual production : commending irrigation, or watering, as one of
the richest improvements that ever was put in practice, especially where fat and
impregnated waters may be had without grittiness, or being over harsh and cold.

Secondly, he delivers what farther advancement may be expected from ster-
coration or manuring the ground with composts ; discovering the qualities latent
in their several ferments, and how to apply them by a skilful and philosophical
hand, without which they do more hurt than good.

II. A Description of the Islands and Inhabitants of Feroe, &c. written in
Danish, by Lucas Jacobson Debes, M.A. and Provost of the Churches there.
Translated by J. S. Doct. of Phys. in 12mo.

The islands described in this book are 17 in number, subject to the King
of Denmark, lying under 62 deg: 10m. of north latitude: concerning which,
the describer gives an account of the fertility of their lands and waters, and of
the inhabitants, besides their government, churches, schools, &c.

Among the observables of these islands, are the following : A dangerous
whirlpool near one of them, called Monk ; which is most mischievous to ships
in still weather, but avoidable with a fresh gale of wind. — ^The ordinary declina-
tion of the needle on Feroe, is by our author affirmed to have been 13° 13' to
the north-west. An. 1659. — ^The tides are strongest here, three days before,
and three days after, the new and full moon ; and a north-east and a south-
west moon, make highest water in all the principal streams of these islands. —
The famous whirlpool, or sea-gulf, under Norway, called the Maalstrom, is by
Kircher and others erroneously said to run down under the land of Norway, and

246 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN'o I67S.

run out again at another sea-gulf within the Sinus Botlmicus, as this author
undertakes to prove.

In Feroe there are no trees, but only some shrubs of juniper. Abundance
of turf compensates that defect.

On the sand near the sea side is found in some places a kind of pellucid
stones, so hard that with them you may write on glass : they are white, or of a
bluish white ; others yellow : some of them may be so well polished, that they
serve for rings. — No grain will come to maturity there but barley. They
abound in pastures ; and in several places grass is so plentiful and juicy, that
oxen feed on it both winter and summer, growing sometimes so fat, that one
ox yields a 100 pounds of tallow: which rich pastures, our author observes,
always lie to the north-east and north ; as he notes also, that in Iceland the
north part is more fertile in grass and cattle than the south ; and that Green-
land likewise is found to be much more given to grass on the north-east side,
than on the west side. — The ground is manured with sea-weeds, laid on heaps
to rot ; by which they get good crops of barley. — Their plants are, turnips,
carrots, coleworts, lettuce, cresses, penny-royal, scurvy-grass, beccabunga, sor-
rel, angelica, tormentil and radix rhodia. — When extraordinary snow falls, and
shepherds are not present to drive their sheep under shelters, the sheep assem-
ble close together ; and the snow so covering them, that they cannot be seen
for a while ; at last the countryman perceives a damp arising from the snow by
reason of their warmth, and so goes and makes a passage for them to get out.
Sometimes, when they cannot be found by reason of excessive snow, they
will remain a whole month under the snow, eating the grass by the roots,
and the wool off one another. Their sheep, generally, are white in the north
part, but black in the south ; and being brought white from the north to the
south, they will change colour; yet so as to grow first spotted about their
legs, then on their thighs, then under their bellies, and at last all over.

III. The Gentleman's Recreation in four Parts ; viz. Hunting, Hawking,
Fowling, Fishing. Collected from Ancient and Modern Authors, Foreign and
Domestic, and rectified by the Experience of the most skilful Artists of these
times. Lond. in octavo, ]674.

Experiments about the weakened Spring, and some unobserved Effects of the Air,
By the Hon. Robert Boyle. N° 120, p. 467.

Exper. I. Having put filings of crude copper into a crystalline glass of a
conical shape, into which was poured some strong spirit of salt, to the height
of about a finger's breadth above the filings ; and then closing the vessel with a
glass -stopper well fitted to it, we suffered it to continue unmoved in a window
for some days, till the liquor had both obtained a high and darkish brown colour

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 247

by the solution of some of the copper, and lost that colour again, growing clear
like common water, and then taking out the stopper, without shaking the
liquor, thereby giving access to the outward air, the upper surface of the liquor
in a few minutes resumed a darkish brown colour, which penetrating deeper and
deeper, at the end of about a quarter of an hour the whole body of the liquor
appeared to be likewise tinged. The conical glass being again well stopped, the
menstruum again, in very few days, lost its tincture ; which, the stopper being
taken out, it regained as before. Afterwards, keeping the glass in the same
place with the same filings and menstruum in it, for a month or two together,
the liquor would not any more grow clear.

Exper. II. Having taken another such glass, wherein the liquor was grown
clearer than is usual. We took out the stopple, and left it open for about half
an hour, but did not perceive the liquor to have acquired any colour, not even
at the top. But putting in the stopple, and leaving the vessel closed for two
or three hours, it acquired a faint colour, tending to a green; wherefore, taking
out the stopple again, and leaving the glass unstopped for 20 or 24 hours, in
all that time it had not regained its wonted dark colour, but was only arrived at
a green, deep enough, but neither true nor very transparent.

Exper, III. Some strong spirit of salt having been kept upon filings of copper
till the solution was become of a dark brown colour, about three spoonfuls of it
was put into a receiver that might hold eight or ten times as much: being kept
in vacuo about half a year, it retained its colour. But the vessel being opened,
and the external air admitted, the solution in about an hour was turned into a
fine transparent green, though no precipitation of any muddy substance ap-
peared by any sediment to be made.

Exper. IV. On putting into another conical glass some filings of copper, with
a convenient quantity of spirit of salt ; after a few weeks it lost its muddy tinc-
ture, and appeared like common water. On unstopping the glass, to give free
access to the outward air, we observed, that in some hours its operation on the
liquor was scarcely sensible, but within about 24 hours the menstruum had ac-
quired, not just its former colour, but a somewhat faint and moderately trans-
parent green: so that this tinged menstruum, as it had been very slow in losing
its colour, so it did but slowly and imperfectly regain it.

Exper. V. We put some filings of copper, with a mercurial gauge, in a coni-
cal glass, fitted with a ground stopple, and poured on the filings rectified spirit
of fermented urine made per se, to the height of an inch or better above them ;
then carefully stopping the glass several hours after, the mercury in the sealed
leg was considerably depressed; and gently drawing out the stopple, to let in
the air, we perceived it to have a manifest effect on the mercury.

248 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. fANNO l675.

Exper. VI, On a proper quantity of clean filings of good copper, we poured
strong spirit of fermented, or rather putrified urine, to the height of an inch
above the copper ; and having let down a mercurial gauge, so that it leaned on
the bottom and side of the glass, we closed it very well with a stopple, and set
it in a quiet and lightsome place, noticing at what mark the quicksilver rested
in the open leg of the gauge. This done, suffering the menstruum to work
upon the filings, which it did rather slowly and very calmly without producing
any noise or sensible bubbles, it acquiring by degrees a very pleasant blue colour,
which by degrees grew fainter and fainter, till at the end of three or four days
the liquor was grown very pale. On taking out the stopple, that the air with-
out the glass might have access to that within, within four or five minutes, if
not less, the upper part of the liquor, that was contiguous to the air, had ac-
quired a fine blue colour, which descended deeper and deeper ; so that in less
than a quarter of an hour from the first unstopping of the phial, the liquor was
become throughout of a rich blue colour, and which in a few minutes longer
turned opaque. Carefully closing the phial again with the same stopple as be-
fore, the liquor began again, in two or three days, to lose of its colour. In most
of these experiments I forbore to shake the glass, lest it should be suspected,
that the agitation of the liquor might have raised some little fine powder, that
might have been supposed to have been precipitated from the tincture, and,
being thus mixed with the liquor again, restore it to its former colour.

Exper. VII. On covering the bottom of a conical glass with a convenient
quantity of filings of good copper, we poured on them as much strong spirit of
sal ammoniac as served to swim about a finger's breadth above them ; and
having let down a mercurial gauge, and proceeded in all respects as in the fore-
going experiment ; without producing any noise or sensible bubbles, acquiring
by degrees a very pleasant blue colour, and afforded us also the phenomenon we
chiefly looked after ; which was, that for two or three days together the mer-
cury in the sealed leg of the gauge descended till it appeared to be near a quarter
of an inch lower than at first ; by which it appeared, that the spring of the air
contained in the cavity of the glass, and communicating with that in the open
leg of the gauge or syphon, was weakened in comparison of that in the closed leg.

Exper. VIII. A mercurial gauge having been put into a conical glass whose
bottom was covered with beaten coral, some spirit of vinegar was poured in,
and then the glass stopple closing the neck exactly, on the working of the men-
struum on the coral, store of bubbles were for a good while produced, which
successively broke in the cavity of the vessel, and their accession compressed
the confined air, in the closed leg of the gauge three divisions, which I guessed
to amount to about the third part of the extent it had before : but some hours

V^OL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 24Q

after, the compression made by this newly generated air grew, manifestly fainter,
and the imprisoned gauge-air drove down the mercury again, till it was depressed
within one division of its first station ; so that in this operation there seemed to
have been a double compressive power exercised; the one transient, by the brisk
agitation of vapours ; the other durable, from the aerial on springy particles,
either produced or extricated by the action of the spirit of vinegar on the coral.

A considerable quantity of spirit of vinegar being put upon minium in a
conical glass, furnished with a glass stopple and a mercurial gauge, continued
several days without any sensible depression of the mercury in either leg ; nor
did any change appear in the gauge, on removing the stopple, though it waS
evident by its sweetness, that it had made a solution of a great portion of the
minium.

Exper. IX. Putting some filings of copper into a phial, capable of holding
two or three ounces of water, we poured on them strong spirit of sal animoniac
made without quicklime, till the liquor reached near an inch above them. In
4 days it had acquired a deep blue tincture, but lost again so much of it, that it
was pale almost like common water. On unstopping the phial, in less than
a minute it acquired a deep blue tincture on the surface to the thickness of the
back of a knife, the whole liquor becoming of the like colour in four or five
minutes more; and the glass being presently stopped again, it appeared not at
the end of nine days to have lost its tincture.

Exper. X. Putting into a round phial, holding about 8 ounces of water,
filings of copper, and the mercurial gauge, we poured on the metal strong spirit
of sal ammoniac, till it reached to a good height in the phial ; which then being
hermetically sealed, and set by in a south window, it quickly acquired a deep
blue tincture. In 12 days the liquor little by little became so diluted that it was
pale, and almost like water : during this stay of the glass in the window, the
mercury in the open leg appeared to be impelled upward; after 9 o'clock at
night the hermetic seal was broken off, on which there was produced a noise,
and the mercury in the shorter and closed leg was briskly impelled up near three
eighths of an inch ; and though the orifice at which the air had access was scarce-
ly wide enough to admit a middle sized pea, yet within a minute and a half the
surface of the liquor, being held between the eye and the candle, appeared to
have acquired a very lovely and fair colour, that reached downwards a quarter of
an inch ; so that the phial seemed to contain two very different liquors swim-
ming one on the other ; and the coloration piercing deeper and deeper, with -
in five minutes in all the whole liquor had attained a rich blue colour.

VOL. II. K K

250 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

Some Pneumatical Experiments made in the Air-pump on Plants. By M, Huys:en^

and M. Papin. N° 120, p. 477.

Having passed into the little hole in the top of a receiver a sprig of balm, so
that the top of the plant was within the receiver, and the roots without : then
closing the rest of the hole with cement, that it might be kept void a good
while, the exhausted receiver was then taken away in this manner: the edge of
the wide orifice of the receiver was well ground, so that it every where
touched exactly a glass-plate, which had also been very smoothly ground to
serve for a cover to it, and spreading a piece of lamb's skin wetted over the
plate, and thus applying it to the engine, the receiver was set over it : but in
one place there was a hail-shot of lead, which kept the receiver from beinff
exactly applied to its cover, that so the air might more freely get out : and
having afterwards covered all with another large receiver, the pump was plied.
All being well exhausted, the engine was shook so as that the little receiver
fell off from the hail-shot, and stood every where close to the skin, expanded
over the cover of the glass plate. Then suffering the air to re-enter into the
great receiver, this air pressing on the small one, kept it so closely fastened to
its cover, that it was impossible to sever them.

Having taken avv^ay the small exhausted receiver, with the plant half shut up
in it; the whole was put into a great glass filled with water, with the root down-
wards ; then there were formed little water-drops on the leaves that were in
vacuo. Being left 10 days in this condition, during that time there were
entered about two spoonfuls of water into the receiver, which in all appearance
had been pressed through the plant.

After this, in order to know whether any air had been formed there ; the
receiver was replaced on the engine, and having whelmed a larger over it, there
was but very little air formed in the small one, because the great receiver was
almost exhausted before the air included in the little one could lift it up. Yet at
last it did raise it, then inclining the engine to one side, that the small re-
ceiver might not be applied to its cover on the air re-entering ; and after this
manner both the recipients were filled in the same time. Then observing the
leaves of the plant, they were not withered, though they were not grown ; only
the leaves had in the middle a little changed their colour, and had a smell some-
what sourish ; but the next morning the plant was quite spoiled. It may be
believed that the pressure of the air had made the water enter into this plant
with such violence, as to have spoiled the leaves in the middle where they were
most tender ; though the water still keeping the leaves extended, they withered

▼OL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS'. 251

not ; but when the air came to act upon them, the parts of the plant that had
suffered so much were soon corrupted by it.

This being done, the experiment was next made the contrary way, that is,
with the leaves in the air, and the roots in a bottle of water that was in vacuo ;
and immediately air- bubbles were observed issuing out at the end of the roots in
vacuo. After this, putting water upon the leaves, to see whether this air came
from thence, these bubbles began to cease; and having taken away the water
wherein the leaves were, the bubbles began again to issue out at the roots as
before, and so continued for 24 hours after, but in a small quantity, till at length
they quite ceased. During these 24 hours the roots lengthened about 4 lines or
one third of an inch ; which is a little less than they usually do in the air. — ^The
plant was kept in this condition for 4 days on the engine, observing from time
to time to draw out the air that entered by the leaves ; then it began to wither,
and the roots shot no more.

Another time, putting two twigs of balm, into separate phials full of water;
in 5 days they both shot roots. Including in the vacuum the one which had the
longest roots, without taking it out of its phial : at the end of three days, ob-
serving that it was withered in vacuo, it was taken out, and the phials were
changed, to see whether that which had remained in the air, and throve very
well in common water, would also thrive in water freed of air ; and whether
that which was withered in vacuo, would revive in the common water, and in
air. Four days after, the twig that had been in vacuo was quite spoiled, and
the other still verdant, but not thriving; and it was observed that it did not
begin to shoot in the water freed of air till ten days after it had been put in.

This experiment drew another after it, viz. to know whether water purged of
air, was less fit than common water, to make plants vegetate. For this end
two phials were filled, the one with water purged, the other with common
water, and having put a twig of balm in each, both were left in the air. The
twig in the common water shot at the end of 6 days, and the other in 10 days
after it had been put in.

Having repeated this experiment once more; the twig in the water freed of
air, began this time to shoot the 3d day, and the other in the common water,
again the 6th day. But it was remarkable, that the twig in the water purged
shot only one root, which grew very long ; and on the gth day only it began a
little to shoot another, which lengthened but one line in 2 days ; whereas the
twig in the common water had then Q or 10 roots, and all very long, having
lengthened 5 lines or more in a day. — ^Although this experiment appeared at
first contrary to the preceding, yet it still confirmed the first opinion^ that the
air which is mixed in common water serves for vegetation.

KK 3

252 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

After this some experiinents were made on firmer plants. A green piece of
sallow wood was put, part in air and part in vacuo, as above described. On
putting into water that part which was in the air, the water presently began to
mount, and to pass through the middle of the wood, and incessantly formed
bubbles in the receiver, for the space of 24 hours ; which was the water passing
through the wood, and in part changed into air. For, making the same ex-
periment with a piece of buff, the water mounted also, and passed through it,
but it formed no bubbles. Meantime, if there be valves in wood, they must
needs be unable to resist the pressure of the air ; for it is noted in sallow, as
well as in elm, that the water passes through them with the same ease, what
end soever is put in vacuo.

One day also having put the upper end of a little elm branch in the vacuum,
and the lower end in the air, and drenching this latter in water, as had been
done the roots of balm in the first of these experiments ; it was a full hour be-
fore there appeared any drop of water on the elm leaves in vacuo ; whereas on
the balm leaves the drops appeared presently. The cause of which may be the
firmness of elm wood. But it may be hard to know why water passing through
wood forms bubbles, and in passing through leaves forms nothing but drops.

Having inverted also this experiment, that is, the leaves in the water with-
out the recipient, and the lower end of the branch in vacuo, nothing appeared in
two hours time ; having cut a little off the upper end of the branch, which
was very tender, a little moisture appeared at the end in vacuo, but enough only
to form one drop ; and there appeared no bubble of air. Then cutting the
branch a little lower, there was formed one drop of water at the end in vacuo,
but it fell not. And having cut the branch yet a little more, the drop of water
fell down in vacuo. This shows, that they were not the valves of the plant that
hindered the water from passing whilst the branch was entire ; but rather that
it was the great tenderness of the leaves, suflfering themselves to l)e compressed
by the pressure of the air, so that the water could not insinuate itself between
their parts.

An Account of some Books. N° 120, p. 481.

I. Francisci Willughbeii de Middleton Armigeri, e Reg. Societate, Ornitholo-
gi£E Libri tres ; in quibus Aves omnes hactenus cognitae, in methodum naturis
suis convenientem redactae, accurate describuntur ; Descriptiones Iconibus ele-
gantissimis et Vivarum Avium simillimis, seri incisis, illustrantur : Totum opus
recognovit, digessit, supplevit Joh. Rajus, pariter e Soc. R. Sumptus in Chal-
cographos fecit illustriss. D. Emma Willughby, vidua. Lond. 1676, folio..

The design of this work is not to give pandects of birds, or to collect indis-

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 253

criminately what has been already published, whether true or false, on this sub-
ject : but to illustrate and set in order the history of birds, partly by describing
the birds themselves from ocular inspection, partly by borrowing the descrip-
tion of those, of which the author and editor themselves could not get a sight,
from the best writers; endeavouring principally to describe all the different
known species of birds, and to reduce them to their several classes.

The work itself is divided into three books, the first treating of birds in ge-
neral ; the second, of land-fowl ; and the third, of water-fowl. In the first are
described the principal, both external and internal, parts of birds, such as are
either peculiar to them, or show a peculiar structure and use in them. In the
external parts the author observes, that the pectoral muscles in birds are the
thickest and strongest of all, serving for the motion of their wings that require
great strength ; whereas in man, the crural muscles are stronger than those of
his arms ; whence, if flying were either possible or fit for man, his legs, fur-
nished with a succedaneum to wings for compressing and beating the air, would
serve him better for that purpose than his arms. In the internal parts, he
notes, among many other things, the considerable difference there is between
the brain of birds and that of man and quadrupeds ; adapted in birds more for
the exercise of the locomotive faculty, than for imagination and memory.

Discoursing, in this part, of the generation of birds, he thinks it highly pro-
bable, that their females have in them, from the time of their being first born,
all the eggs or the primordials of eggs, that they shall lay as long as they live;
which he thinks to be true of human and all other females; making the incuba-
tion of the eggs of fowl to be equivalent to the gestation or bearing of other
animals ; and calling the ovum a uterus expositus, forasmuch as it ministers
aliment to the foetus of those that are commonly called oviparous, like as the
womb does in the viviparous.

Treating 'of the age of birds, and of some of their observable properties and
qualities, he remarks that they live long, that their structure somewhat resem-
bles the formation of a ship; that some of them, as partridges and pigeons, lead
a conjugal life; and that of these there are more males than females, as among
those where one male is sufficient for many females, there are more females
than males; that some of them are very ingenious, and imitate the human
voice, as parrots, thrushes, blackbirds, jackdaws, starlings, nightingales, of
which last, and of parrots, he relates some very extraordinary things. Con-
cluding this first book with an accurate division of birds, and with a cata-
logue, both of such as constantly abide in England, and such as migrate.

In the second book, treating of land-fowl, he considers first those with
hooked beaks and claws; and secondly those that have them more straiglit^

254 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-,

The former are either carnivorous or frugivorous. Concerning the carnivorous
or rapacious, he takes notice; 1. That, though Aristotle says they fly solitary,
yet vultures have been observed to fly in flocks, 50 or 6o together. 2. That the
females of the ravenous birds are larger, stronger, and of greater courage than
the males ; nature seeming to have been so provident as to furnish those fe-
males with such advantages, because they must procure food, not only for
themselves, but also for their young ones. Of the frugivorous he observes,
amongst other particulars, that, as quails eat hellebore, and starlings hemlock,
without any harm to themselves, so parrots not only eat innoxiously the seed
of carthamus or bastard saflron, but also grow fat thereby, which is a purgative
to man.

Amongst those that have straight beaks and claws, he observes : that the
cassowary as well as the pelican is without a tongue; swallowing not only bits
of iron, as the ostriches, but also red-hot coals, yet not digesting the iron, but
voiding it whole as the ostrich does; that capons may be made to keep, feed,
call together, and cover under their wings, young chickens, just as hens do ;
adding the method for accustoming them to it; that the custom of making use
of pigeons for carrying letters is as ancient as the siege of Mutina or Modena,
in the time of Hirtius and Brutus; that pigeon's flesh is good for paralytica!
persons ; that swallows distilled with some castoreum, pyony roots, and white
wine, are an approved remedy against the epilepsy, &c.

The third, treating of water-fowl, is subdivided into three parts; the first
contains those birds that live near water, but not in or upon it. The second,
those that live much in the water, being fissipeds, having their toes severed,
and long shanked, and of the amphibious kind, partaking of the nature of both
those that live near water and swim in it. The third, those that are palmipeds,
whose toes are joined together with a membrane. Of those that live near wet
places, some again live upon fish or slime, as woodcocks, snipes, curlews, &c.
or on insects. Of the piscivorous, the stork is by our author noted to be seen
in England, only when he is driven thither by high winds, or other accidents.
The penguin is observed to dig deep holes, like conies, on the sea shore, and
to make the whole ground thereabout so hollow, that the seamen walking over-
it often fall in knee deep. The anser bassanus, the Soland goose, breeding in
the isle of Bassa, near Edinburgh, lays and hatches no more than one egg at a
time. They come thither in spring, and fly away in autumn, but whither is
not known. The colymbus minor, or didapper, has such a structure of parts,
that he moves much more easily under water than on its surface or aloft ; he
raises himself from the water with great difliculty, but when he is got up into
the air, he can then continue his flight long enough. The swan is very long-

YOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 255

lived, and takes almost two months time in hatching her eggs; and the wild
kind of swans have their wind-pipes passing into the sternum, and there re-
flecting or turning back; the use of which is thought to be, that when this bird
sometimes for near half an hour with his whole head and neck dives to the
bottom for food, turning up his feet on high, there may then from that part of
his wind-pipe, which is included in the said sheath of the breast, as from a re-
pository, be furnished air sufficient for so long a time of diving.

But we must refer to the author himself for many other curious particulars:
among them, of the extraordinary melodious singing of some birds ; the annual
moulting of all birds; the medicines to be prepared out of some of them and
their very excrements ; the artificial nests of many of them ; the tasting of the
Indian raven of nutmegs, on which he feeds, &c.

II. The Comparative Anatomy of the Trunks of Plants; together with an
Account of their Vegetation grounded thereupon, by Nehemiah Grew, M. D.
and F. R. S. in 8vo.

As there has been a very happy concurrence of these two eminently learned
persons, Signor Malpighi and our present author Dr. Grew, both Fellows of
the Royal Society, in making and exhibiting their ingenious and accurate be-
ginnings, concerning the anatomy of plants, and thereby giving a new coun-
try of philosophy ; so they have both been very industrious in pursuing this
subject, in many things confirming each other's observations, and in some
few supplying one another's defects.

In general, it is noted by our author, that here are found some things which
are little less wonderful within a plant than within an animal; that a plant,
like an animal, has organical parts, some of which may be called its bowels ;
that every plant has bowels of divers kinds, containing divers liquors; that
even a plant lives partly on air, for the reception whereof it has peculiar organs.
Again, that all the said organs, bowels, or other parts, are as artificially made,
and as punctually for place and number composed together, as all the mathe-
matical lines of a flower or face ; that by these means the ascent of the sap,
the distribution of the air, the confection of several sorts of liquors, as lym-
phas, milks, oils, balsams, with other acts of vegetation, are all contrived and
brought about in a mechanical way.

In particular, we find in the first of the two parts of this book; 1. A de-
scription of six several trunks of plants, as they appear to the naked eye; viz. of
borage, dandelion, colewort, holy hock, wild cucumber, endive. 2. An accurate
description of several tninks, and parts of trunks, as they appear through a
good microscope ; which parts are, the bark, the wood, and the pith. Of the
bark he describes the skin, the parenchyma, and the vessels ; the last of which

256 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675.

he finds in the bark to be always and only sap vessels. In some, he finds sap-
vessels to be only lymphseducts ; in others, lymphasducts and lactiferous; in
others lymphaeducts and resiniferous ; lastly, in some, two kinds of lymphse-
ducts, and one of a sort of resinous. He also asserts the analogy between the
vessels of an animal and a plant. 3. Having described the bark, he proceeds
to the woody part ; and here in the several trunks he considers their two general
parts, namely, the parenchymous part or insertions, and the vessels; the ves-
sels have likewise much variety, yet are of two general kinds, namely, sap- ves-
sels and air-vessels, whereas it is proper to the bark to have only sap-vessels.
4. Lastly, he describes the pith; first in general, proving it to be, as to its
substance, the same with the parenchyma in the bark, and the insertions in the
wood ; stating its being compounded of two parts, a parenchyma and sap-ves-
sels; the parenchyma made up of bladders, of very different sizes and shapes
in different plants, and being of such a texture, that the sides of the greater
bladders are composed of lesser, in the same manner as the sap-vessels are, but
greater fibres made up of lesser.

The second part of this book gives an account of the vegetation of trunks,
grounded on the foregoing anatomy, and showing the use that may be made of
the same, in order to explain the manner of vegetation : under the seven fol-
lowing heads:

1. The motion and course of the sap. 2. The motion of the air; that it
first enters the plant by the trunk, but chiefly by the root, and is thence in a
peculiar manner distributed throughout the whole plant. 3. The structure of
the parts ; where he explains the unison of the bark to the body of the tree,
with the cause of it: considers the various surface and falling off" of the bark ;
the lessening of the pith in the elder-branches ; the ruptures of the pith, and
for what ends made; further, how the air-vessels come to be less in the trunk
of the same plant than in the root ; and those of the first year usually much
less than those of the years following ; as also, how the air-vessels come to be
formed always late in the year. 4. The generation of liquors, depending on the
structure and formation of the parts ; where he shows, that the concurrence of
two specifically distinct liquors is as necessary to nutrition in plants as in ani-
mals ; and that the vessels are the chief viscera of a plant ; the viscera of an
animal being but vessels conglomerated, and the vessels of a plant, only viscera
drawn out at length. To which he adds a particular explanation how a vinous
sap is made, how a resinous, oily and milky ; likewise, how the liquors of
plants come to be white ; what is a rosin properly so called ; what a gum ; what
a mucilage. 5. The figuration of trunks; where he renders the cause of a
shrub, a tall tree, a slender, and a thick tree, as also of the round or angular

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 257

shape of a tree. 6. The motions of trunks; where occurs the cause of their
ascent and descent into the ground ; their horizontal and spiral motion ; and
whence solar and lunar plants are distinguished ; some winding together with the
sun in its diurnal motion, by south from east to west ; and others with the
moon in its monthly motion, from west to east. 7 • The nature of trunks, as
variously fitted for mechanical use ; where he shows why woods are soft, hard,
clevesome, tough, or durable; why the heart of timber is most durable; and
why some trees have heart, and others not; likewise, whence the toughness of
flax, and what sorts of plants serve for the best tow ; giving lastly an account
how all prosperous conjunctions in grafting may be known, and what is the
chief use of grafting, viz. to accelerate the growth of good fruit.

III. The Royal Almanack, &c. by N. Stevenson, one of his Majesty's
gunners.

A continuation of the same almanack as publisheii the former year, and be-
fore described.

Continuation of the Pneumatical Experiments, made by M. Huygens and M,

Papin. ]SI°121, p. 492.

To know whether the vacuum would be of use to the preservation of bodies,
an apple was inclosed, which had a little speck of rottenness, with some water in
the same recipient, thereby to promote its corruption in case any should take
place. But no change of that nature was observed.

The 7th of June were inclosed in a receiver two nosegays of roses, one sus-
pended at the top, the other having its tail in a little vessel full of water,
together with a gauge 4 inches long, to know whether any air would be there
produced. Two days after, the roses were a little withered, and the water al-
ready risen to 8 or 10 lines, near the top of the gauge ; and after that, the
changes of these flowers became still less, so as not to be much more withered.
The roses in the water were as much withered as the others, and as soon.
I shall keep them in this condition as long as I can. Other roses which had
been included at the same time, but with air, grew mouldy in less than 3
days.

At another time was inclosed one single rose-bud in a very small glass, to
discover whether it would keep its scent. At the end of 15 days it looked a
little less fresh, but was not at all withered ; and having taken it out, it had still
its good smell; but afterwards it lost all, both colour and smell, in less than two
hours. Its leaves did not appear moist in the vacuum, though they did so as
soon as they were in the air. Which shows, that the leaves had acted as
gp'onges, discharging their humidity by the pressure of the air. Some gilli-

VOL. II. L L

258 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-6.

flowers piit into the receiver changed but very httle, only they looked as if they
had been dipped in water.

Strawberries at the end of two days looked less fresh, but after that, seeing
they changed no more in 1 5 days, they were taken out of the vacuum, when
they had still the smell and taste of strawberries ; but they had also contracted a
very ungrateful taste of the cement used to close them up. At another time
some strawberries were inclosed without cement, making use of a skin after the
manner described formerly; and then nothing new was observed, except that
their taste kept good, but was a little sour, and that they yielded a little
water.

Some cherries inclosed were all burst except two; in two days more they had
a little changed their colour, and those two that before remained whole, were
now burst like the others. After that no more change in them was observed.

Having inclosed in the vacuum one cherry with 1 1 large currants, the cherry
burst presently, but after that, it changed not, only it appeared turned, as the
currants also did.

Having inclosed in the vacuum four raspberries and three currants, the latter
appeared also to be turned, and the raspberries looked less fresh than before.
But it is now more than five months, and no change is perceived in them.

Hitherto had been eniployed only small receivers, which just held the little
fruit put in them, and the red currants seemed to keep well enough; so that
one day we filled a large glass with them, hoping to keep that as well as the
small receivers. But were surprised five days after to see that bubbles were
formed in the turpentine, which had been put about the glass, in the place
where it was fastened to its cover, and that these bubbles were burst outwards ;
and afterwards, having seen that the cover held fast to the bolthead no longer,
it left no doubt of the currants having produced air enough to lift up the glass,
and to form in the turpentine the bubbles we had seen, and it appeared by the
smell that they had fermented. They were yet good, except some that had lost
almost all their taste and all their acidity.

The same thing happened with a very small receiver, that could hold no more
than one cherry and one red currant. These fruits yielded also air enough to
lift up their receiver seven days after they had been included. This effect is
rather to be ascribed to the cherry than the currant.

Another time we inclosed some of the same kind of cherries, a whole large
n-lass full, and found that from the second day they had yielded air enough to
lift up the cover. We took away part of the cherries, and inclosed the rest
again ; and this second time they did not raise the glass till the eighth day.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. iSQ

The cherries looked fair, but they had lost much of their taste, and afterwards
they were spoiled in less than an hour.

Having inclosed three pears of that sort called rouselet, in a like-figured
glass, which could hold no more, they lifted up the glass at the end of five
days; but they were not changed, only one of them was a little softer.

A peach was inclosed in such a glass emptied of air, with a gauge to it ; and
the first six hours the quicksilver in the gauge was risen about an inch ; yet it was
not till the 13th day-that the glass was lifted up; and the peach appeared to
have kept very well till then ; but after that it rotted in a very little time. In-
closed bread yielded no air in a whole month.

Roasted mutton included, with a gauge, in four days had yielded no air ; but
after six weeks the mercury was risen to the middle of the gauge, and having
taken out the meat it smelt rank. Raw beef being inclosed, with a gauge ; in two
days the quicksilver was risen an inch in the gauge ; and after six weeks the
mercury was got almost to the top of the gauge, and this meat had con-
tracted a much worse smell than that which had been roasted. Keeping for 15
days a piece of fresh butter in vacuo, it smelt stronger than when first put in :
yet it could still be eaten on bread ; whereas another piece of butter kept in
the air the same time was altogether unfit to be used.

Extract from a Letter of Mr. Flamsteed, Regius Professor of Astronomy at
Greenwich, to Sir Jonas Moor, Knight, &c. containing his Observations of the
late Lunar Eclipse, Dec. 2], l675. N° 121, p. 405. Tramla ted from the
Latin,

Correct time of clock. The Phases.

14^ 29"^ 3(f. . . . Between the cusps, 2085 = 17' 16''.
45 ... . The shadow nearly touched Haemus.
30 .... It had certainly touched Hasmus.

30 The right cusp from Meraeotis 1235 = lO' 14'^.

O The lucid parts about 2800 = 23' 1 1'''.

30... .. The shadow near Macra.
45 ... . Between the cusps about 2288 = 18' 57".
15.... The end: for the limb appeared, and the moon round.
O . . . . The limb very plainly seen through the tube.
30 ... . The penumbra, which to the naked eye resembled an eclipse.
30 ... . Diameter of the moon taken about 3757 = 3l' 5^^
0.... Still, and afterwards, the limb, after the eclipse, seemed
rather obscure.
I observed besides, that the shadow always appeared much more distinct at

L L 2
\

14

55

15

0

15

11

15

35

15

42

15

52

16

7

16

8

16

15

16

19

16

23

260 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-6.

the horns than the other parts of the moon. At the first observation, or a little
sooner, the horns were parallel to the horizon. Then also Porphy rites and the
great black lake were equally out of the shadow, viz. about the length of Me-
rseotis. The shadow went out near the upper Hyperborean lake, the penumbra
remaining, which exhibited the eclipse to the naked eye as far as 4^ 1 5^"*. But
the limb left by the eclipse did not recover the brightness of the other limb till
4^ 28"^, or later. The times of the phases were corrected by altitudes of Arctu-
rus and the bright star in the Crown; to the taking of which altitudes I applied
myself at intervals, when clouds came over the moon, those stars sometimes
shining out very bright in the other part of the heavens.

j4 Letter of Mr. Franc. Linus, from Liege, the 15th of Feb. 1675, iV. S. being
a Reply to the Letter printed in Number 110, by way of Answer to a former
Letter of the same Mr. Linus, concerning Mr. Isaac Newton's Theory of
■ Light and Colours. N° 121, p. 499.

Hon. Sir. — In yours of Dec. 17, you say, I may rest assured, first, that the
experiment was made in clear days ; 2dly. that the prism was placed close to the
hole, so that the light had no room to diverge; and 3dly. that the image was
not parallel, as I conjectured, but transverse to the axis of the prism. Truly,
sir, if these assertions be admitted, they do indeed directly cut off what I said
of Mr. Newton's being deceived by a bright cloud. But if we compare them
with Mr. Newton's relation of the experiment in the Phil. Trans. N° 80, it
will evidently appear, they cannot be admitted, as being directly contrary to
what is there delivered. For there he tells us, the ends of the coloured image
he saw on the opposite wall, near five times as long as broad, " seemed to be
semicircular." Now these semicircular ends are never seen in a clear day, as
experience shows. From whence it follows, against the first assertion, that the
experiment was not made in a clear day. Neither are those semicircular ends
ever seen when the prism is placed close to the hole : which contradicts the se-
cond assertion. Neither are they ever seen when the image is transverse to the
length or axis of the prism : which directly opposes the third assertion. But if,
in any of these three cases, the image be made so much longer than broad, as
easily it may by turning the prism a little about its axis, near five times as long
as broad, than the one end thereof will run out into a sharp cone or pyramis,
like the flame of a candle, and the other into a cone somewhat more blunt,
both which are far from seeming semicircular; whereas, if the image be made
not in a clear day, but with a bright cloud, and the prism not placed close to
the hole, but at a competent distance from the same, as you see it placed in the
scheme of the experiment in N° 84, then these semicircular ends always appear

TOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 26l

with the sides thereof straight lines, just as Mr. Newton there describes
tliem. Neither is the length of the image transverse, but parallel to the length
of the prism. Out of all which it evidently follows, that the experiment was
not made in a clear day ; nor with the prism close to the hole ; nor yet with
the image transverse, as is now affirmed, but by a bright cloud, and a parallel
image, as I conjectured ; and I hope you will also now say, I had good reason
so to conjecture, since it so well agrees with the relation: and experience will
also show you, if you please to make trial, as it was made, in a dark chamber,
and observe the diiference between such an image made by a bright cloud, and
another made by the immediate rays of the sun : for, the former you will always
find parallel, with the ends semicircular; but the latter you will find transverse,
with the ends pyramidical as aforesaid, whenever it appears so much longer than
broad.

More might be said out of the same relation, to show that the image was not
transverse. For if it had been transverse, Mr. Newton, so well skilled in optics,
could not have been surprised, as he says he was, to see the length thereof so
much to exceed the breadth ; it being a thing so obvious and easy to be ex-
plained by the ordinary rules of refraction. That other place also in the next
page, where he says the incident refractions were made in the experiment equal
to the emergent, proves again that the said oblong image was not transverse
but parallel. For it is impossible that the transverse image should be so much
longer than broad, unless those two refractions be made very unequal, as both
the computation according to the common rules of refraction, and experience
testify. Wherefore Mr. Newton had no reason to tax P. Pardies of hallucina-
tion, for making those two refractions very unequal : for that learned optician
very well saw, that in a clear day so great an inequality of length and breadth
could not be made, unless those two refractions were also made very unequal.
These places, I say, might be added to the former, and further here explained
if need were; but there being no need, I cease to detain you any longer
herein.

Mr. Isaac Newton s Considerations on the former Reply ; together with further
Directions, hoiu to make the Experiments controverted aright : Cambridge,
November 13, 1675. N°121, p. 501.

Sir — ^When you showed me Mr. Line's second letter, I remember I told
you that I thought an answer in writing would be insignificant, because the dis-
pute was not about any ratiocination, but my veracity in relating an experiment,
which he denies will succeed as it is described in my printed letters : for this is
to be decided not by discourse, but new trial of the experiment. What it is.

262 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 675-6.

that imposes on Mr. Line I cannot imagine ; but I suspect he has not tried the
experiment since he acquainted himself with my theory, but depends upon his
old notions, taken up before he had any hint given to observe the figure of the
coloured image. I shall desire him therefore, before he returns any answer, to
try it once more for his satisfaction, and that according to this manner.

Let him take any prism, and hold it so that its axis may be perpendicular to
the sun's rays, and in this posture let it be placed as close as may be to the hole
through which the sun shines into a dark room, which hole may be about the
size of a pea. Then let him turn the prism slowly about its axis, and he shall
see the colours move upon the opposite wall, first towards that place to which
the sun's direct light would pass, if the prism were taken away, and then back
again. When they are in the middle of these two contrary motions, that is,
when they are nearest that place to which the sun's direct ray tends, there let
him stop ; for then are the rays equally refracted on both sides the prism. In
this posture of the prism let him observe the figure of the colours, and he shall
find it not round as he contends, but oblong, and so much the more oblong as
the angle of the prism, comprehended by the refracting plains, is larger, and
the wall on which the colours are cast, more distant from the prism ; the colours
red, yellow, green, blue, purple, succeeding in order, not from one side of the
figure to the other, as in Mr. Line's conjecture, but from one end to the other;
and the length of the figure being not parallel but transverse to the axis of the
prism. After this manner I used to try the experiment: for I have tried it
often ; sometimes to observe the circumstances of it, sometimes in order to
further experiments, and sometimes to show it to others, and in all my trials the
success was the same. But whereas Mr. Line thinks, I tried it in a cloudy day,
and placed the prism at a great distance from the hole of the window ; the
experiment will not succeed well if the day be not "clear, and the prism placed
close to the hole, or so near at least, that all the sun's light that comes from
the hole may pass through the prism also, so as to appear in a round form if in-
tercepted by a paper immediately after it has past the prism.

When Mr. Line has tried this, I could wish he would proceed a little further
to try that which I called the experimentum crucis, seeing, if I mis-remember
not. he denies that as well as the other. For when he has tried them, which
by his denying them, I know he has not done yet as they should be tried, I
presume he will rest satisfied.

Three or four days after you gave me a sight of Mr. Line's second letter, I
remember I thereupon showed the first of these two experiments to that gentle-
man whom you found with me, when you gave me that visit, and whilst I was
showing it to him, R. H, a member of the Royal Society came in, and I showed

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 203

it to him also. And you may remember that R. H. two or three years ago in a
letter read before the Royal Society, and transmitted to me, gave testimony,
not only to the experiments questioned by Mr. Line, but to all those set down
in my first letter about colours, as having tried them himself; and when you
read Mr, Line's letter at a meeting of the said Society, and was pleased to do
me the favour to propound the experiment to be tried in their presence, R. H.
spake of it to them as a thing not to be questioned. But if it have not yet been
tried before them, and any of them upon Mr. Line's confidence doubt of it, I
promise when I shall have the happiness to be at any more of their assemblies,
upon the least hint, to show them the trial of it; and I hope I shall not be
troublesome, because it may be tried, though not so perfectly, even without
darkening a room, or the expence of any more than half a quarter of an hour ;
although if Mr. Line persist in his denial of it, I could wish it might be tried
sooner there, than I shall have an opportunity to be among them.

An Extract of another Letter of Mr. Newton, the lOth of January ]67i, relating
to the same Argument. N" 121, p. 503.

By Mr. Gascoin's letter* one might suspect, that Mr. Linus tried the

experiment some other way than I did; and therefore I shall expect till his
friends hav'e tried it according to my late directions. In which trial it may
possibly be a further guidance to them, to acquaint them, that the prism casts
from it several images : one is, that oblong one of colours which I mean; and
this is made by two refractions only. Another there is, made by two refractions
and an intervening reflection ; and this is round and colourless, if the angles of
the prism be exactly equal ; but if the angles at the reflecting base be not equal,
it will be coloured, and that so much the more, by how much unequaller the
angles are, but yet not much unround, unless the angles be very unequal. A
third image there is, made by one single reflection, and this is always round
and colourless. The only danger is in mistaking the second for the first. But
thev are distinguishable, not only by the length and lively colours of the first,

* This letter was written to the editor, December 15, l67o, from Leige, where M. Gascoine,
havino- been a scholar of Mr. Linus, now deceased, resides. In it are contained these words, to
which Mr. Newton, to whom it was communicated, seems here to have respect, viz. Mr. Linus
tried the experiment again and again, and called divers on purpose to see it, nor ever made ditficulty
to show it to any one, who either by chance came to his chamber as he was doing it, or showed the
least desire to see the same. So. tliat for point of experience, Mr. Newton cannot be more confi-
dent on his side than we are here on the other j who are fully persuaded, that, unless the diversity of
placing the prism, or tlie largeness of the hole, or some other such circumstance, be the cause of the
difference betwixt them, Mr. Newton's experiment will hardly stand. — Orig.

264 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-6.

but by Its different motion too : for whilst the prism is turned continually the
same way about its axis, the second and third move swiftly, and go always on
the same way till they disappear ; but the first moves slow, and grows con-
tinually slower till it be stationary, and then turns back again, and goes back
faster and faster, till it vanish in the place where it began to appear.

If, without darkening their room, they hold the prism at their window in the
sun's open light, in such a posture that its axis be perpendicular to the sun
beams, and then turn it about its axis, they cannot miss of seeing the first
image ; which having found, they may double up a paper once or twice, and
make a round hole in the middle of it, about -|- or f of an inch broad, and hold
the paper immediately before the prism, that the sun may shine on the prism
through that hole ; and the prism being stayed, and held steady in that posture
which makes the image stationary; if the image then fall directly on an opposite
wall, or on a sheet of paper placed at the wall, suppose 15 or 20 feet from the
prism, or further off; they will see the image in such an oblong figure as I have
described, with the red at one end, the violet at the other, and a bluish green
in the middle : and if they obscure their room as much as they can, by drawing
curtains or otherwise, it will make the colours the more conspicuous.

This direction J have set down, that nobody into whose hands a prism shall
fall, may find diifi.culty or trouble in trying it. But when Mr. Linus's
friends have tried it thus, they may. proceed to repeal it in a dark room with a
less hole made in their window shutter. And then I shall desire that they will
send you a full and clear description, how they tried it, expressing the length,
breadth and angles of the prism ; its position to the incident rays, and to the
window shutter; the largeness of the hole in "the window shutter, through
which the sun shined on the prism ; what side of the prism the sun shined on ;
and at what side the light came out of it again ; the distance of the prism from
the opposite paper or wall on which the refracted light was cast perpendicularly ;
and the length, breadth, and figure of the space there illuminated by that light,
and the situation of each colour within that figure. And if they please to
illlustrate their description with a scheme or two, it will make the business
plainer. By this means, if there be any difference in our way of experimenting,
I shall be the better enabled to discern it, and give them notice where the
failure is, and how to rectify it. I should be glad too, if they would favour me
with a description of the experiment, as it has been hitherto tried by Mr. Linus,
that I may have an opportunity to consider, what there is in that which makes
against me.

TOL. X.] FHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 265

An Account of some Books. N° 121, p. 505.

,1. Pharmaceutice Rationalls, sive Diatriba de Medicamentorum Operationi-
biis in Humano Corpore ; Pars Secunda ; Auth. Tho. Willis, M. D. &c. E.
Theatro Sheldon iano, 1675.

As we did not deem it necessary to retain the analysis given of the first part
of this book, and inserted in N*' 99, so, for the reason there assigned, we omit
an account of this.

II. Collegium Experimentale sive Curiosum, in quo primaria hujus Seculi
Inventa et Experimenta Physico-Mathematica, An. 1672, quibusdam Naturae
Scrutatoribus spectanda exhibuit, et ad causas suas naturales demonstrative me-
thodo reduxit Johannes Christophorus Sturmius,* Mathem. acPhys. in Academ.
Altdorfina, Prof. P. &c. Norimbergae, An. 1676, in 4to.

The learned author of this piece, in the invitation he made to some students
in philosophy, at Altdorf in Germany, that they would unite under his conduct
for examining some of those discoveries and experiments made of late years,
remarks that in this one age, not yet elapsed, there has been far more progress
made in natural philosophy, than in many ages before, and chiefly by means
of that happy experimental method, employed by the Royal Societies of England
and France, and the noble colleges of Rome, Florence, Venice, &c. by which
method he says, the disputatious way of wrangling about mere scholastical and
fruitless notions being laid aside, things themselves from the inmost recesses of
nature have been searched into, and many of them discovered and brought to
light. Which, having first explained in his college lectures, he now in this
volume gives them to the public at large. The collection consists of 1 6 essays,
of a philosophical nature, treated of ; which he acknowledges to have been, at
least for the most part treated of, by some of the most eminent philosophers of

♦ John Christ. Sturm, a celebrated mathematician and philosopher, was bom at Hippolstein, l635,
where he died in 1703. He was first minister of a church in Germany during five years ; and then
became professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, at Altdorf in Germany. He exerted him-
self greatly, and was very useful, by his lectures and otherwise, in explaining and diffusing the know-
ledge and discoveries made in that remarkable age, the 17th century 5 as is manifest by his writings,
particularly the curious work above noticed. In l684 the author gave a second, and much larger
part, of the like collection of discoveries made till that aeraj with an appendix of fiirther additions and
explanations to the particulars in the 1st part. The same year also he published a large collection of
letters to Dr. Henry More, of Cambridge, on the controversy concerning the weight and spring of
the air. Sturm published also a German translation of Archimedes ; and several mathematical works
of his own J as, Mathesis Enucleata, in one volume 8vo. j andMathesis Juvenilis, in two large
volumes, 8vo.

VOL. II. Mm

^66 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOXS. [aNNO 1 67 5-(5.

this age; amongst whom he names the illustrious Bacon, Descartes, TorricelH
Boyle, Roberval, Paschal, Huygens, and Guerick.

Of these l6 essays, The 1st explains the diving-bell, its structure and use.

The 2d exhibits the chief optical phaenomena of a darkened chamber. — ^The 3d
relates the effects of the Baroscope, or the Torricellian quicksilver tube. — The
4th shows some experiments of metalline weights floating, and without any
other support freely pendulous in water and air. — The 5 th represents some other
hydrostatical phaenomena, about glass-bubbles, at first floating on the surface of
the water, and afterwards subsiding by afFused oil, &c. — The 6th deduces some
consectaries from the before asserted spring and weight of the ever-gravitating
air. — ^The 7th contains some experiments of a glass-tube, 36 feet high, flUed
with water, and declares their causes from the equilibrium of the air and so
much water. — ^The 8th shows some phaenomena in very narrow tubes, viz. the
ascent of water in them above its other superficies ; with the reason of it. — The
Qth exhibits the eft'ects, and declares the causes of several sorts of thermo-
meters.— The 10th mentions a very paradoxical experiment of Franc. Lana. —
The nth represents, and reduces to its principles, the force of mechanical
powers. — The 12th discourses of an art, both of writing any thing in any
tongue, to be read and understood by any nation of what language soever, and
of reading and understanding any thing written in any tongue. — ^The 13th con-
tains some considerable effects and experiments of the air-pump, partly made
by others, partly by himself; all reduced to their proper causes. — The 14th de-
clares the uses and reasons of the effects of hygrometers and chronometers. —
The 15th explains the structure of microscopes and telescopes, proving their
effects by many observations. — The l6th exhibits divers pleasant spectacles of
a portable darkened room, and of a catoptro-dioptrical lantern, adding the
genuine reasons of them ; and for an appendix subjoins his new, as he esteems
it, perpetual almanack, comprehending not only the immoveable feasts fixed to
certain days of the months, but also the moveable ones, of Easter, Pentecost,
and the rest depending on them ; as also the motions of the sun and moon
through the 12 celestial signs, with the moon's menstrual increases and de-
creases, &c.

Besides an appendix, of further particulars about the diving machine, the
weight of the air, the new pocket watches, &c.

III. England's Improvements, in two Parts, &c. By Roger Cook, London,
1675, in 4to.

In the former of these two parts, the author shows, how the kingdom of
England may be improved in strength, employment, trade, and wealth, by in-
creasing the value of lands, &c. And, in the latter part, how the navigation of
England may be increased.

TOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 267

IV. The College of Physicians Vindicated, and the True State of Physic in
this Nation faithfully represented, &c. By Charles Goodall, M. D. London,
1676, in 8vo.

In this vindication of that learned body, the London College of Physicians,
their utility to the public and to the profession, i^i suppressing quackery and
maintaining the dignity and true interests of the medical character, is strenu-
ously advocated.

Pf the Incalescence of Quicksilver with Gold. By B. R. Communicated in Latin,
T Traiislated by Mr. Oldenburg. N° 122, p. 515.

In this long paper Mr. B. R. enters into an inquiry whether or not the com-
mixtion, or amalgamation of gold with mercury, is accompanied with a sensible
production of heat ; which he decides in the negative, in respect to common
mercury, and in the affirmative with regard to purified, or (as he terms it) ennobled
mercury. I took, says he, to one part of the mercury, sometimes half and
sometimes an equal weight of refined gold reduced to a calx or subtle powder.
This I put into the palm of my left hand, and putting the mercury upon it,
stirred it and pressed it a little with the finger of my right hand, by which the
two ingredients were easily mingled, and grew not only sensibly but con-
siderably hot, and that so quickly, that the incalescence sometimes arrived at
its height in a minute. I found the experiment succeed, whether I took as
much, or only half as much gold as mercury; but the effect seemed to be much
greater when they were employed in equal weight. And to obviate a suspicion,
which, though improbable, might possibly arise, as if the immediate contact of
the ingredients and the skin produced a sense of heat, which was not due to
the action of the metals upon each other; I had the curiosity to keep the mix-
ture in a paper, and found not its interposition to hinder me from feeling the
incalescence, though it much abated the degree of my sense of it. i"

I tried also the same mercury with refined silver reduced to a very fine
powder ; but I could not perceive any heat or warmth at all ; though I am apt
to think, that if I had had a sufficient quantity of leaf-silver to have made the
experiment with, I should, after some time, have produced an incalescenccj
though much inferior to what the same quantity of mercury would produce with
gold. I shall now add, that in order not to be thought to impose upon myself,
I not only made trial in my own hand, when in different tempers as to heat and
cold, but the hands of others, who were not a little surprised and pleased at the
event. And this I did more than once or twice ; by which means I had, and
still have, divers witnesses of the truth of the experiment. Among whom is
the learned Secretary of the Royal Society ; to whom having given the ingredi-

M M 2

268 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 675-6.

ents, I desired him to make the experiment in and with his own hands, in which
it proved successful within somewhat less than a minute.*

And what makes this incalescence the more considerable is, that being will-
ing to husband my mercury, a great part of which had been, as I guessed
stolen from me before I employed it, I made these trials but with a drachm at a
time, which scarcely amounts in quantity to the largeness of half a middle sized
bean ; whereas, if I could have made the experiment with a spoonful or two of
quicksilver, and a due proportion of gold, it is probable the heat would have
been intense enough, not only to burn ones hand, but perchance to crack a
glass phial ; since I have sometimes had of this mercury so subtile, that when I
employed but a drachm at a time, the heat made me willing to put it hastily out
of my hand.

I doubt not but what I have related and hinted has made you curious to know
somewhat further of this mercury : and I confess, that if there be any truth in
what some of the most approved spagyrists have delivered about a solvent of
gold that seems akin, and perhaps is not much nobler than one that I had; it
seems allowable to expect, that even ours should be of more than ordinary use,
both in physic and alchymy. But the misfortune I had of having lost a con-
siderable quantity of it, being afterward increased by the almost sudden death of
the only operator I trusted in the making of it ; I was altogether discouraged
from repeating such a troublesome preparation, especially being diverted by
business, sickness, and more pleasing studies. And though I have not forgot-
ten some not despicable trials that I made with our mercury, yet since they are
not necessary to the question that occasioned this paper, I shall pass them over
in silence, and only observe some few things I had almost forgotten to tell you ;
namely first, that whereas it is usual to take four, five or six, nay eight or 10
parts of common quicksilver to make an amalgam with one of gold, even when
both are heated by the fire ; I found our mercury so congruous to that metal,
that it would presently embody with no less than an equal weight of it, and pro-
duce a pretty hard amalgam or mixture, in which the mercury was so diffused,
that the gold had quite lost its colour. Secondly, I shall add what for aught I
know has not been yet observed, that this power of penetrating gold and grow-
ing hot with it, is so inherent, not to say radicated, in our mercury, that after
it had been distilled from gold again and again, I found it retain that property.
And lastly, as it may be suspected that this faculty may be quickly lost, (as that
of the prepared bononian stone to receive light, has been complained of as not

* Since this was written, tlie President of the Royal Society, Lord Visct. Brouncker, made the
same experiment with some of the same mercury, in his own hand, with good success.— Orig.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 26q

durable) I found by trial that a single drachm of mercury, made after a certain
manner, did the third or fourth year after I had laid it by, grow so hot with gold,
that I feared it would have burnt my hand.

I shall therefore admonish those inquisitive spagyrists, that may be desirous
to try, whether their purified mercury be incalescent, that they be not too hasty
to conclude it is not so ; nor to reject it, unless they have made the trial with
gold duly prepared. For I have found, that my mercury did not grow hot with
the smallest filings of gold I could make (though indeed within a few hours after
it did, without the help of fire, embody with it into a hard amalgama,) which
argued that the corpuscles of the metal were not yet small enough to be sud-
denly penetrated by the quicksilver : nor will every calx of gold serve our turn,
as I have found by employing, without success, a very fine and spongy calx
made after an uncommon way, the golden particles having, as it seemed, some
extremely fine though unobserved dust of the additament sticking to them,
which hindered the adhesion of the mercurial ones. Now the calx of gold that
I most used, as finding it still to do well, was that made by quartation* (as
Alchymists call it.) But because it is not so easy, as even chemists that have
not tried imagine, to make good calces of gold, and that in the way newly
mentioned there needs fusion of the gold and of silver (for which many chemists
want conveniences,) and they are often imposed on by common refiners, who
here usually sell in wires such silver for fine (which indeed it is comparatively,)
as I have found not to be without mixture ; I shall add, that by making an
amalgama the common way with pure gold and vulgar mercury, and dissolving
the mercury in good aquafortis, there will remain a powder, which, being well
washed with fair water to dulcify it, and kept a while in a moderate fire to dry
thoroughly without melting it, will become a calx, which I have more than
once used with our mercury with good success. It is true, both in this way and
in that (by quartation,) aquafortis, which is a corrosive liquor, is employed to
bring the gold to powder, and therefore in a diffident mind some suspicion may
arise, that the incalescence may proceed only from the action of the acid parti-
cles of the menstruum, which yet adhering to the corpuscles of the gold works
upon the quicksilver, as aquafortis is known to do : but, to omit those answers
that cannot be given in few words, after I have taken notice, that, if the effect
depends not on our mercury (as prepared) but only on the calx, it appears not,
why this should not grow hot with common mercury as well as with ours ; I

■* That is, by melting togetlier one part of fine gold, and three or four parts of cuppelled silver,
and then putting the mass, wherein the metals are mixed, almost per minima, into purified aqua-
fortis, which dissolving the silver only, leaves the gold in the form of a fine calx. — Orig. [The terra
calx of gold is here improperly used] for in the operation of parting with aquafortis, the gold is left in
its reguline state.]

270 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-6^,

shall need to add, for the removal of this subtle scruple no more, than this plain
experiment, (which I twice or thrice made,) namely, that taking instead of a
calx of gold, a competent number of leaves of gold, such as book-binders and
the apothecaries use, this gold that was without the help of salts reduced by-
beating to a sufficient thinness (insomuch that 70 odd leaves did not weigh a
scruple,) I found (more than once) upon putting two or three times the weight
of our mercury to them, that a smart heat was presently produced in my hand.

Observations on several Passages in the last tivo Months Transactions, relating to
some unobserved Qualities of tlw Air ; to the Mixing and Fermenting of Liquors
in vacuo ; to the History of Birds ; the Anatomy of the Trunks of Vegetables ;
Baroscopes, &c. N° 122, p. 533. Anonymous.

Corrosions of bodies, especially with a sensible motion, by emitting effluvia,
which may also be springy themselves, if saline, may further bend the springy
particles of the air, giving it a greater elasticity. On the contrary, other cor-
rosions not so emitting, by different ways, may weaken this spring.

In the first experiment, (in a late paper by Mr. Boyle) the solution may ac-
quire a brown colour by the menstruum's imbibing the particles of copper into
itself, which would alter its texture ; and the impeding particles, diversifying
the refractions and reflections, may modify the rays of light ; or, as it is in
Mr. Newton's theory, the solution may be qualified only to admit such rays
whose degrees of refrangibility, and mixture with other rays, may be predis-
posed to give a brown, to which effect the air did much contribute.

So perhaps in the second experiment the delay of regaining was to be im-
puted to the cold or moisture, or other critical circumstances of the air, having
less of those dissolving particles which make it a menstruum on those bodies.

Those ingenious Frenchmen, excited by Mr. Boyle, the glory of learning,
as well as of our nation, having given us an attempt of mixing and fermenting
liquors in vacuo, do prosecute fermentation, particularly of that in the growth
of plants; how it may be impeded or promoted by the absence or presence of the
air.

In the continuation of January, by which and what Mr. Boyle has written,
we see the nature of the air, its effects on bodies when present ; by procuring
its absence. Now Sir W. Petty can no more complain at the idle employment
of weighing air; for the doctrine being well illustrated, and the theory esta-
blished, we thus descend again to more useful and grounded experiments ; as
the method mentioned by my Lord Bacon, to proceed from experiments to
axioms and assertions; from these, as too general, to particular and useful ex-
periments, which before we could not do, till we had cleared the doctrine from
wide and extravagant guesses. ,

rOEi X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 271

The industrious author of the History of Birds gives me occasion to wish,
that some other would undertake that of other creatures, as minerals, insects,
fishes, &c. reducing them to their classes with philosophical observations,
useful to illustrate many passages in experimental philosophy.

By the Royal Almanack we see it is the ingenuity of this age, that being freed
from the slavish opinion of the government of the planets, they cancel their
power in events, and show their operation on the masses of matter, and some
peculiar sympathizing bodies, as in the essay of hidden qualities in the air,
which is the true end and perfection of astrology, and natural magic.

By accurate baroscopes we may regain that knowledge which still resides in
brutes, and we forfeited by not continuing in the air, as they do for the most
part, and by intemperance corrupting the crasis of our senses. I remember
that Kircher, in his description of China, speaks of a stone, (how true I know
not) which being made into a human shape, by nature or art, by change of co-
lour prognosticates fair or foul weather.

Some Pneumatical Experiments on Animals in the Air-pump, By M. Huygens

andM.Papin*. N° 122, p. 542.

We included in the vacuum an insect which resembles a beetle, but is a lit-
tle larger ; and when it seemed dead, on giving it air again, it soon after reco-
vered. Putting it in the vacuum again, and having left it there for an hour,
we readmitted the air, the insect required then much more time to recover. In-
cluding it the third time, and having left it there two days, on giving it air
again, it required above ten hours before it began to stir again, yet it recovered
again at last; but having put it in again the fourth time, and left it there eight
days, it never recovered more.

Having inclosed a butterfly, on readmitting the air, the top of its back, which
before was much swelled, shrunk in more than it did before, and the insect
never recovered.

Several birds, mice, rats, rabbits, and cats, being inclosed, some of them
recovered by quickly giving them air again, before the engine was quite ex-
hausted ; but none of them revived that had been in a perfect vacuum. M.
Guide made frequent dissections of such animals thus killed, and observed
among other things, that their lungs fell to the bottom in water. And he says
that the solidity or closeness of the lungs of animals that die in vacuo is owing
to the blood, which is propelled into the lungs by the vena^arteriosa, so strongly

* Compare No. 62 and 63 of these Tracts, where many experiments of this kind, made by Mr.
Boyle, are recorded.

272 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-(J.

presses the bronchia of the arteria aspera, that it expels the air out of them, and
presses their sides together. But it appears not probable that the blood of the
vena arteriosa can thus compress those bronchia, being inclosed in its vessels,
which hinder it from compressing others. And the bronchia being harder than
the arterial vein, they will compress it more easily than be compressed by it.
It is therefore far more probable, that if the lungs be compresed that compres-
sion be made by the pleura, which may be swelled within the breast, as the skin
is swelled without.

But it is not necessary that the lungs be compressed in vacuo, to make them
subside in water. For we have often put pieces of lungs and whole lungs in
the vacuum, and they remained there extremely swelled; but as soon as the air
was again admitted, they became very flat and red, and sunk to the bottom in
water. Which shows, that it is sufficient for getting the air out of the lungs,
to render them close and red : and we have not been able to produce this ef-
fect but by means of the exhausting engine. For we have left lungs a whole
night between two plates, with a great weight upon them, to endeavour to ex-
press the air out of them, but without success ; and those lungs still floated on
the water. We have also tried to make the air re-enter into the lungs after
they were rendered solid in the engine, which was very easy ; for drawing them
out from the bottom of the water, and blowing into the aspera arteria, the
lungs swelled again, and resumed their ordinary colour, and floated on the
water. And this is what happens to the lungs of infants newly born.

Promiscuous Experiments with the Air-pump. By M, Huygens and M, Papin.

N° 122, p. 544.

Putting a covered receiver, a fourth part of which was filled with water, over
the flame of a candle, the water boiled very quickly, yet the glass not much
heated, so that the water boiled near a quarter of an hour with a great ebulli-
tion, and the glass was no more than tepid. After it was removed away from
the flame, the water continued a great while boiling, and began again from
time to time. On making the same experiment with a gauge, all the bubbles
that issued out of the water did not make the mercury rise sensibly. After-
wards exposing this receiver to the frost, the ice which was formed in it was not
quite free from bubbles, though the water had boiled in the vacuum, which,
one would think, should have driven out all the air: yet the bubbles were there
far less numerous than in ice made of ordinary water. The quicksilver was not
much raised in the gauge. Afterwards this ice was melted, and the water
abroad put to freeze again, still without taking it out of the vacuum, and this
second time it was much freer from bubbles.

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 273

After this, spirit of wine was made to boil in vacuo in the same manner as
the water, and it boiled much sooner; and it made the mercury rise about an
inch in the gauge. After taken from the fire, it continued boiling; and even
sinking the receiver into cold water, it boiled much more strongly.

Having caused some gunpowder to be burnt with a burning glass ; we were
much surprised to see that it burnt grain by grain, none of the grains kindled
fire in those which touched. Another time when the sun had less force, we
could not at all kindle the powder, but made it only boil and emit store of
smoke. We put a gauge in the same recipient, by means whereof we observed
that all that smoke produced no air ; for the quicksilver did not rise in the tube.
This smoke falling on the paste-board, on which the powder was put, appeared
yellow of the colour of brimstone. Then we took out the powder that re-
mained, being like a black mass, and having put it upon burning coals, it
burned like salt-petre ; so that the sulphur was almost all exhaled.

Another time having put the weight of 12 or 15 grains of powder in a glass
shaped like a cupping-glass, capable of holding 14 ounces of water, and hav-
ing set fire to it, the powder boiled and smoked as usual. Afterwards seeing
that the grains began to crack very near one after another, we took away the
burning concave, for fear all should be kindled together ; but it was already too
late, for the corns continued to crack longer than a second of time, and at last
all kindled, though there was then nothing left to heat them but the fire which
they had kept within themselves. The receiver was lifted up above a foot high
without breaking.

Another time putting the weight of 1 8 grains of powder with a gauge into
a receiver, holding seven pounds of water, and firing the powder, it made the
quicksilver rise to the height of an inch and a half in the gauge; and I am
very well assured that all that air was not come from without; for that part of
the receiver to which the cover is applied had always been under water.

From what has been related it may be concluded, that there is a fifth part of
air in gunpowder, supposing, as other experiments show, that air is about
1000 times lighter than water. For, in this experiment, the mercury rose to
the 18th part of the height where the air commonly sustains it; and conse-
quently the weight of 18 grains of powder yielded air enough to fill the 18th
part of a receiver that contains seven pounds of water. Now this 1 8th part
contains 49 drachms of water: wherefore the air that takes up an equal space
being 1000 times lighter weighs -toVo- of 49 drachms, which is more than three
grains and a half. It follows therefore that the weight of 1 8 grains of powder,
which were employed in the experiment, contained more than three and a half
of air, which is about the fifth part of 18 grains.

VOL. II. N N

'17i PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 67 5-6.

It may also be calculated, how many times this air has been compressed in
the powder; but this calculation is more uncertain than the former, because we
know not whether this air took up more or less than the fifth part of the space
which the powder possessed. But yet it is certain, that though it had even
taken up three-fourths of the whole room of the powder, and that the 14
grains of the other matter had taken up no more than the one remaining fourth
part, still this air would have been compressed about 300 times. To calculate
this, suppose that the space of a cubic foot can hold only 72 pounds of gun-
powder, which contain more than 14 pounds of air, by the foregoing calculus;
which quantity of air is therefore found inclosed in the three-fourths of a cubic
foot. Now this space usually contains but about six drachms of air ; wherefore
to make it hold 14 pounds of air, which is near 300 times six drachms, it must
needs be that the air be compressed near 300 times.

There is reason to believe, that this compression is much greater, because a
cubic foot can hold much more than 72 pounds of powder, and because also
that the fifth part of the weight must not in appearance possess alone the three-
fourths, and all the rest take up no more than one-fourth of the space possessed
by all the powder.

We should therefore make no difficulty to believe, that all the effect of gun-
powder comes from the air which is compressed therein, and especially in the
salt-petre ; for we have not observed that brimstone yields air. Possibly also
we may find in time, that all other fulminations, ebullitions, and fermentations,
that make such surprising motions, are nothing else but air compressed expand.,,
ing itself.*

An Account of Tivo Books. N° 122, p. 549.

I. Cours d'Architecture, enseigne dans 1' Academic Royale d' Architecture,
Premiere Partie; par M. Francois Blondel,-!- de 1' Academic Royale des Sciences,
&c. a Paris, 1675, in fol.

* With these very curious experiments and deductions do nearly agree those of Mr. Robins, re-
corded in the Philosophical Transactions about 70 years afterward j and on which he founded his ce-
lebrated theory of the force of fired gunpowder; as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice in its
proper place.

t Francis Blondel, a celebrated mathematician, architect, and military engineer, was born at
Ribemond, in Picai'dy, 1617. While yet but young, he was chosen regius professor of mathematics
and architecture at Paris. He enjoyed many honourable employments in the navy and army; and
was intrusted with the management of several negociations with foreign princes. He anived at tlie
dignity of marechal de camp, and counsellor of state, and had tlie honour to be appointed mathema-
tical preceptor to the Dauphin. Blondel was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, director
of the Academy of Architecture, and lecturer to the Royal College ; in all which situations he sup-

VOL. X.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 275

In this first part of architecture are explained the origin and principles of it,
and the practice of the five orders, according to the doctrine of Vitruvius and
his principal followers, with the doctrine of the three most renowned architects
that have written among the moderns, viz. Vignole, Palladio, and Scamozzi.

For the improvement of this art the king of France has instituted an aca-
demy at Paris, which meets weekly to confer about the improvement of that
subject; teaching the most correct rules of architecture, and so to form a se-
minary of young architects, to be encouraged by certain prizes for such as shall
excel, who are to be sent afterwards, at his majesty's expence, into Italy, to
perfect their knowledge and skill, and so to be made capable to serve him in the
survey of his buildings all over his kingdom. And because the knowledge of
the precepts of architecture is not sufficient by itself alone to make an architect,
this skill supposing many other accomplishments, the king has appointed, that
in the academy should be taught the other sciences that are absolutely neces-
sary to architects, such as geometry, arithmetic, the mechanics, hydraulics,
gnomonics, fortification, perspective, &c.

This first part being merely practical as to the five orders, the author has al-
together applied himself to show, with great plainness, which are the most
correct practices to be used, beginning with that of Vitruvius, and explaining
him by the practice of his best interpreters or imitators, such as Philander,
Daniel Barbaro, Serlio, Alberti, &c.

In the second part the author intends more fully to explain what has been but
touched on in this first part, and to compare the sentiments which architects have
entertained among themselves concerning the best examples of the ancients.

II. Remarks upon two late ingenious Treatises: the one, an Essay touching
the Gravitation and Non-gravitation of Fluid Bodies ; the other. Observations
touching the Torricellian Experiment, so far as they may concern any passages
in the Enchiridium Metaphysicum ; by Dr. Henry More, London, 1676, in
octavo.

Instead of giving an account of this tract, the reader may compare with it
what has been not long since published by those two eminent philosophers, Mr.
Boyle and Dr. Wallis; the former in an hydrostatical discourse, occasioned by

ported his character with dignity and applause. He was also well versed in the belles lettres, as ap-
pears by the comparison he published between Pindar and Horace. Blondel died at Paris in 1686,
being tlie 69th. year of his age. His chief mathematical works were: 1. Cours d' Architecture, in
16755 2. Resolution des Quatre Principaux Problemes d'Architecture, 1676; 3. Histoire du Calen-
drier Romain, 16823 4., Cours de Mathematiques, l683j 5. L'Art de Jetter des Borabes, l685j be-
sides a new method of fortifying places 3 also some other separate works, and many ingenious pieces
inserted in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, particularly in the year 1666.

N N 2

Q.'jQ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

the objections of this learned author against some explications of new experi-
ments made by the said Mr. Boyle; which was printed in 1672, among some
other tracts, viz. new experiments touching the relation betwixt flame and air;
of the positive or relative levity of bodies under water; of the air's spring on
bodies under water, &c. The latter, in a discourse of gravity and gravitation,
grounded on experimental observations, presented to the Royal Society, printed
1675. These pieces being well considered, and the doctrine of hydrostatics
well understood and applied^ will make it easy to judge of the whole contro-
versy here treated of.

END OP VOLUME TEN OF THE ORIGINAL.

A Particular Anstver of Mr. Isaac Newton to M. Linus' s Objections to his Expe-
riment with the Prism, printed in N° 121, in a Letter from Cambridge, Feb,
29, 1675-6. N° 123, p. 556. Fol. XL

Sir, — By reading Mr. Linus's letter, which you showed me at London, I re-
tained only a general remembrance, that Mr. Linus denied what I affirmed, and
so could lately say nothing in particular to it ; but having the opportunity to
read it again in N° 121 of the Transactions, I perceive he wished to persuade
you that the information you gave him about the experiment is as inconsistent
with my printed letters as with experience; and therefore, lest any who has
not read those letters should take my silence in this point as an acknowledgment,
I thought it not amiss to send you something in answer to this also.

He tells you that, " Whereas you assure him, first, that the experiment
was made in clear days; secondly, that the prism was placed close to the hole,
so that the light had no room to diverge; and thirdly, that the image was not
parallel but transverse to the axis of the prism ; if these assertions be compared
with my relation of the experiment in N^ 80, it will evidently appear they can-
not be admitted, as being directly contrary to what is there delivered." His
reasons are these :

First, that I said, " the ends of the long image seemed semicircular, which,
says he, never happens in any of the three cases abovesaid." But this is not
to set me at odds with myself, but with the experiment: for it is there describe
to happen in them all; and I still say, it does happen in them. Let others try
the experiment, and judge.

Further he says, that " the prism is placed at a distance from the hole in
the scheme of the experiment in N° 84." But, what if it were so there ? for,
that is the scheme of a demonstration, not of the experiment, and would have

VO L. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 277

served for the demonstration, had the distance been put twenty times greater
than it is. In the schemes of the experiment N° 80 and N° 82, it is repre-
sented close, and close enough in the scheme N° 83. But Mr. Linus thought
fit to wink at these, and pitch upon the scheme of a demonstration, and such
a scheme too as has no hole at all represented in it. For the scheme, N® 84,
(fig. 5. pi. 9) is this; in which the rays are not so far distant from one another
at GL, but that the hole, had I expressed it, might have been put there, and
yet have comprehended them. But if we should put the hole at x, their de-
cussation, yet will it not be any thing to his purpose ; the distance xG or xL
being but about half the breadth of a side of the prism (^AC), which I con-
ceive is not the 20th part of the distance requisite in his conjecture.

3. He says, that " more might be said out of my relation to show that the
image was not transverse; for if it had been transverse, I could not have been
surprised, as I said I was, to see the length thereof so much exceed the breadth,
it being a thing so obvious and easy to be explicated by the ordinary rules of re-
fraction." But on the contrary, it may rather be said, that if the image had
been parallel, I could not have been surprised to see the length thereof so much
exceed the breadth, it being a thing so extremely obvious as not to need any
explication. For who that had but common sense, and saw the whole prism,
or a good part of it, illuminated, could not expect the light should have the
same long figure upon the wall that it had when it came out of the prism .'' Air.
Linus, therefore, while he would strengthen his argument by representing me
well skilled in optics, does but overthrow it. But whereas, he says, " I could
not have been surprised at the length, had the image been parallel, it being a
thing so obvious and easy to be explicated by the ordinary rules of refraction ;"
let any man take the experiment entire as I have there delivered it, that is,
with this condition^ that the refractions on both sides the prism were equal, and
try if he can reconcile it with the ordinary rules of refraction. On the contrary,
he may find the impossibility of such a reconciliation demonstrated in my an-
swer to P. Pardies, N° 84.

In the last place he objects, that my saying in N° 80, " that the incident re-
fractions were, in the experiment, equal to the emergent," proves again, that
the long image was parallel. And yet that very saying is a sufficient argument
that I meant the contrary, because it becomes wholly impertinent, if applied to
a parallel image ; but in the other case is a very necessary circumstance. What
is added, therefore, of P. Pardies, might have been spared, especially since that
learned person understood my discourse to be meant of a transverse image, and
acquiesced in my answers.

This in answer to Mr. Linus's letter: and now, to take away the like suspicions

278 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

from his friends, if my declaration of my meaning satisfy not, I shall note some
further passages in my letter, whereby they may see how I was to be under-
stood from the beginning, as to the aforesaid three circumstances.

For the day; I express every where that the experiment was tried in the sun's
light, and in N° 80, that the breadth of the image by measure answered to the
sun's diameter ; but because it is pretended, I was imposed upon, I would ask,
what the experiment as it is advanced to that which I called the experimentum
crucis, can have to do with a cloudy day ? for if the experimentum crucis, which
is that which I depend on, can have nothing to do with a cloudy day, then is it
to no purpose to talk of a cloudy day in the first experiment, which does but
lead on to that. But if this satisfy not, let the Transactions, N° 83, be con
suited; for there I tell you how, by applying a lens to the prism, the straight
edges of the oblong image became more distinct than they would have been
without the lens; a circumstance which cannot happen in Mr. Linus's case
of a bright cloud.

For the position of the prism ; I tell you, N° 80, that it was placed at the
sun's entrance into the chamber, and I directed to make a hole in the shutter,
and there place the prism, and in the next page I say again, that the prism ABC
is to be set close by the hole F of the window EG; and accordingly represent
it close in the figure. Also in another page I tell you, that the distance of the
image from the hole or prism was 22 feet; which is as much as to say, that the
prism, suppose that side of it next the hole, was as far from the image as the
hole itself was, and consequently that the prism and hole were contiguous.
Also in the next page, where instead of a window shutter I made use of a hole in
a loose board, I tell you expressly, that I placed the board close behind the prism.
All these passages are in my very first letter about colours, and who therefore
would imagine that any one that had read that letter, should so much as suspect
that I placed the prism, I say not at so great a distance as Mr. Linus supposes,
but at any distance worth considering.

Lastly, for the position of the image, it is represented transverse to the axis
of the prism in the figures N° 80, N" 83, and N* 85. And in N° 88, where I
made use of two cross prisms, I tell you expressly, that the image was cross to
both of them, at an angle of 45 degrees. The calculations also, N" 80, are not
to be understood without supposing the image cross. Nor are my notions about
different refrangibility otherwise intelligible ; for, in Mr. Linus's supposition,
the rays that go to the two ends of the image are equally refracted. So for
colours; the red, according to my description, falls at one end of the image, and
the blue at the other ; which cannot happen but in a transverse image. The
same position is also demonstrable from what I said in N° 80, about turning the

VOL. XI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 2/9

long image into a round one, by the contrary refraction of a second prism,
further explained in N° 83. For this is not to be done in Mr. Linus*s surmise
of a parallel image, and therefore had Mr. Linus considered it, he could never
have run into that surmise.

This I suppose is enough to manifest the three particulars; any one of which
being evidenced, is sufficient to take away the scnaple. And therefore Mr.
Linus's friends need not fear but that the further directions I sent them lately
for trying the experiment, are the same with those I have followed from the
beginning ; nor trouble themselves about any thing but to try the experiment
right. But yet, because Mr. Gascoin has been pleased to insinuate his suspicion,
that I do differ from himself in those directions, I shall not scruple here to re-
duce them into particulars, and show where each particular is to be found.

1. Then he is to get a prism with an angle about 6o or 65 degrees, N^ 80.
If the angle be about 63 degrees, as that was which I made use of, N° 80, he
will find all things succeed exactly as I described them there. But if it be larger
or less, as 30, 40, 50. or 70 degrees, the refraction will be accordingly larger or
less, and consequently the image longer or shorter. If his prism be pretty
nearly equilateral, such as 1 suppose to be usually sold in other places as well as in
England, he may make use of the largest angle. But he must be sure to place
the prism so, that the refraction be made by the two planes which comprehend
this angle. I could almost suspect, by considering some circumstances in Mr.
Lmus's letter, that his error was in this point, he expecting the image should
become as long by a little refraction as by a great one; which yet being too
gross an error to be suspected of any optician, I say nothing of it, but only hint
this to Mr. Gascoin, that he may exam inc. all things.

2. Having such a prism, he must place it so, that its axis be perpendicular to
the rays N° 84. A little error in this point makes no sensible variation of the
effect.

3. The prism must be so placed, that the refractions on both sides be equal,
N* 80 : which, how it was to be readily done by turning it about its axis, and
staying it when you see the image rest between two contrary motions, as I ex-
plained in my late descriptions, so I hinted before, N° 80. If there should be a
little error in this point also, it can do no hurt.

4. The diameter of the hole 1 put -i- of an inch, N° 80, and placed the prism
close to it, even so close as to be contiguous, N*^ 80. But yet there needs no
curiosity in these circumstances. The hole may be of any other size, and
the prism at a distance from the hole, provided things be so ordered, that the
light appear of a round form, if intercepted perpendicularly at its coming out of
the prism. Nor needs there any curiosity in the day. The clearer it is the better;

280 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

but if it be a little cloudy, that cannot much prejudice the experiment, so the
sun do but shine distinctly through the cloud.

These things being thus ordered, if the refracted light fall perpendicularly on
a wall or paper at 20 feet or more from the prism, it will appear in an oblong
form, cross to the axis of the prism, red at one end, and violet at the other;
the length five times the breadth, more or less according to the quantity of the
refraction; the sides, straight lines, parallel to each other; and the ends con-
fused, but yet seeming semicircular.

I hope, therefore, Mr. Linus's friends will not entertain themselves any further
about incongruous surmises, but try the experiment as Mr. Gascoin has pro-
mised. And then, since Mr. Gascoin tells you. That " the experiment being
of itself extraordinary and surprising, and besides ushering in new principles into
optics, quite contrary to the common and received, it will be hard to persuade
it as a truth, till it be made so visible to all as it were a shame to deny it :" if he
esteem it so extraordinary, he may have the privilege of making it so visible to
all, that it will be a shame to deny it. For I dare say, after his testimony no-
body else will scruple it. And I make no question but he will hit of it, it being
so plain and easy that I am very much at a loss to imagine what way Mr. Linus
took to miss.

Extract of three Letters from Sig. Cassini, on his Observations of the Lunar
Eclipse of Dec. 21, l675, and Remarks on Mr. Flamsteed's Account of the
same. N° 123, pp. 56l, 563, 564. Translated from the Latin.

In this eclipse, two of the principal circumstances we have determined exactly,
viz. the middle time of the eclipse and its magnitude. The middle is deduced
not only from a. comparison of the beginning and end, but also of two equal
phases, which are very easily determined, viz. when the distance of the horns
was equal to the semidiameter of the moon, taken before the eclipse, being 15'
18'^ That is, when the beginning of the eclipse was estimated at 2^ 24™ 35^
after midnight.

End of the total darkness, a like penumbra being left as was in h. m. s.

determining the beginning 4 15 25

Duration of the whole eclipse comes out 1 50 50

The semiduration therefore O 55 25

And the middle of the eclipse 3 20 O

A 6th part of the circumference is cut off 2 38 5

And, again, end of total obscuration > 4 2 25

The interval or duration 1 24 20

VOL. Xr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 281

h. m. s.

Itshalfis 0 42 10

Hence the middle of the eclipse 3 20 15

Agreeing with the former determination to the quarter of a minute.

We agree exactly with Mr. Flamsteed, in the situation of the shadow, and in
the magnitude of the eclipse. For it is observed by both of us, that the shadow
never went beyond Porphy rites, though it was deeply immersed in the penum-
bra. Next to Porphy rites is a small whitish mountain, which we then called
the Companion of Aristarchus, because it is scarcely distant by its own diameter
from Porphyrites. That little mountain was immersed in the shadow at 2*^ 51"
15^; and it emerged at 3*^ 8"^ 25'; and all the time between it was in the shadow
next to Porphyrites. We both of us observed also, that in the height of the
eclipse the shadow nearly reached to Corsica; yet was never covered by it, a
small interval being left ; the distance of which limit being taken from the
nearest limb of the moon, was 8' \T'\ whereas Mr. Flamsteed found the dis-
tance of the island itself a little farther from the same limb, being 8' 3Q". We
also observed the island, or rather peninsula, Macra to be a long time adjacent
to both the shadows. We noticed that this began at 3^ 28"^ 1 5% and that it
continued at the same distance for a quarter of an hour.

A Transit of the Moon above Jupiter, Feb. 28, l67f. Old Slyle, in the Morningy
observed at Greenwich. By Mr. Flamsteed. N° 1 23^ p. 566,

Correct time of Clock. Distances and Altitudes.

h. m. s.

4 20 15. . . . Jupiter's distance from the moon's bright limb 1& g"

4 47 0. . . . The moon's diameter taken 31 30

4 49 30. . . . Jupiter from the nearest cusp 26 28

4 52 15 . ..Jupiter had passed over a right line drawn through

the cusps, by a 10th part of the distance, or about

3', as conjectured by the eye through the tube.

4 56 O. . . . Jupiter from the cusp 27 33

5 1 15. . . . From a right line through the cusps 7 53

5 3 30. . . . From the cusp 28 22

5 7 25. . . . From the right line g 58

5 10 50. . . . From the same 11 55

5 15 50. . . . From the cusp 30 27

5 21 20. . . . From the farther limb, dubious 62 4

5 26 O. . . . From the nearest cusp 33 q

5 31 25. ... From the right line through the cusps 20 9

VOL. II. O 0

282 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16'/6.

Correct time of Clock. Distances and Altitudes.

5h 37m Qs From the cusp 36' 35^

5 41 10. . The moon's altitude being 10-i-°, the diameter about 31 53

5 48 30. . DifF. of altitude of Jupiter and the moon's lower limb 23 1

5 52 40. . Jupiter from the nearest cusp 41 40

6 9 40. . From the cusp, dubious 47 29

u4n Account of Books. N° 123, p. 567.

auTTiv u7rcjw,i/r)|tAa5 &c. Cum Versione et Notis Joh. Wallis, SS. Th. Doct. Geo-
metrias Professoris Saviliani. Oxonii e Theatro Sheldoniano, 1676.

Though this tract of Archimedes's Arenarius has been formerly twice printed
in Greek, and thrice in Latin, yet the learned Dr. Wallis saw reason for pub-
lishing another edition ; presenting us with many emendations in the original,
and with a new version in Latin, also adding some short explanatory strictures.
Indeed the book seemed to deserve these pains, being not only an elegant and
acute piece, worthy of Archimedes, but also an excellent monument preserving
both a piece of remote antiquity, as is that of the hypothesis of Aristarchus
Samius revived by Copernicus, and that of the Doric dialect in prose. Be-
sides, it exhibits the foundation laid of the art of numbering, or rather noting
of numbers, now in use amongst us, with Saracenic or rather Indian cyphers.
And it accommodates those numbers a, p, y, $, t, &c. not only to numbers pro-
portional in a decuple ratio ; but also to any others, in any ratio whatever, that
are in a continual proportion from the unit: and they are the same with what
is commonly called unit, root, quadrat, cube, biquadrat, viz.
a j3 y (J" £ ^ n, &C.
\ a aa c? a^ a" a^, &c.

This book exhibits a number exceeding that which is equal to the number of
the sand, capable to fill up, not only the whole earth and its cavities, but also
the whole world.

To this tract of the number of the sand, is added that other of the same
Archimedes, touching the dimension of a circle, because it is several times
quoted in the former, as the foundation of his calculus; nor did it want emenda-
tion. To it is annexed Eutocius's short commentary on the said dimension,
which exhibits a specimen of the form and manner, wherein the later Greeks
used to write their comments on the more ancient authors ; and it shows also
how laborious it was to make multiplications, divisions, and extractions of roots
before the use of the Indian cyphers was introduced, as well as in what manner
they were performed.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 283

II. Obsen^ationes Medicae circa Morborum Acutorum Historiam et Cura-
tionem ; Auth. Thoma Sydenham, M. D. Lond. in 8vo.

Sydenham's works are, or ought to be, in the library of every physician.

III. De Consensu Vet. et Novae Philosophiae Libri IV, seu Promotae per Ex-
perimenta Philosophiae Pars Prima: Authore J. B. Du Hamel, P. S. L. et Regiae
Scientiarum Academiae k Secretis, in 12mo.

In this second and considerably augmented edition the learned author per-
forms four things, in so many books.

In the first, he gives an account of the principles of the Platonic philosophy,
and shows the difference between it and the Peripatetic ; delivering in the same
the natural theology of the Platonists, and discoursing, from their principles, of
the existence of God, and his providence and concourse ; then of the origin as
well as the spirit of the world. — In the second book he explains, first the prin-
ciples of Aristotle, treating at large of the nature and origin of forms. Next,
he treats of the Epicurean philosophy, as less difficult and more obvious ; dis-
coursing of atoms, their nature and figures of continuity, and the manner of
the cohesion of atoms, as also of vacuity, &c. — ^Thirdly, he explains the Car-
tesian principles ; where he has first a long discourse about the nature of a
physical body, endeavouring to evince, that the essence of it consists not in
three dimensions, and to show that the idea of these (than which Descartes
contends we can have no other of a body,) is the idea only of a mathematical,
not a physical body. Secondly, he treats largely of the nature and law of mo-
tion. Thirdly, of the elastic motion, with its causes, and the manner in which
it is communicated. — In the third book he treats amply of the four elements,
commonly so called, fire, air, water, and earth : where occur many consider-
able observations concerning fire and air. The Epicurean notion of fire is here
explained, as well as the Cartesian, and those particulars discussed, that seem dif-
ficult in the latter. There are also recited many phaenomena of flame, and the
latent fire in lime and other bodies ingeniously discoursed of: also, what is the
nature and use of the air, what the nature of the aether, with the many experi-
ments about the spring of the air, made in the Machina Boyliana, in England
and elsewhere, &c. — In. the fourth are explained the principles of chemistry, the
mixture and dissolution of bodies, fermentation, &c. This also is full of new
experiments and observations, made here, in France, and other countries.

IV. Of Education, especially of Young Gentlemen, in two parts, the second
impression with Additions ; Printed at the Theatre, Oxon. 8vo.

That learned knight Sir Henry Wotton, did long since, at the end of his
Elements of Architecture, promise, as devoted to the service of his country, a
philosophical survey of education^ which is indeed, says he, a second building

o o 2

284 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16/6,

or repairing of nature, and a kind of moral architecture. This he promised
An. ]624; and he made many essays, and began some chapters, but could
never bring his design to so much perfection, as could give satisfaction to his
own mind and intentions. In this our author, who is pleased to conceal his name,
is very full and punctual, with instructions proper for all conditions of human
life, particularly for the generous : having reduced the best of ancient and mo-
dern advisos into a compact method, and mixed it with a very great variety of
his own seasonable suggestions.

V. Bathoniensium et Aquisgranensium Thermarum Comparatio, variis Ad-
junctis illustrata, a R. P. Lond. 1676, 8vo.

A treatise on the Bath and Aix la Chapelle mineral waters.

VI. Vinetum Britannicum, or a Treatise of Cider, and such other Wines and
Drinks, as are extracted from all manner of Fruits growing in this Kingdom ;
with the Method of Propagating all sorts of Vinous Fruit Trees. And a De-
scription of a New-invented Engine or Mill, for the more expeditious and better
Making of Cider. Also the Method of making Metheglin and Birch Wine ;
with Copper-plates. By J. W. Gentleman, in Bvo.

This is done by the worthy author of Systema Agriculturse in folio^ and is
esteemed an ingenious and useful work.

Observations made during Travels from Fenice, through Istria, Dalmatitty Greece,
and the Archipelago, to Smyrna, By Mr. Franc.ix Vernon. N*' 124, p. 575,

In Istria we saw Pola, an ancient republic. There remains yet an amphi-
theatre entire : it is of two orders of Tuscan pillars, placed one over another,
and the lower pillars stand on pedestals, which is not ordinary ; for commonly
they have nothing but their bases to support them. There are besides a tem-
ple dedicated to Rome and Augustus, a triumphal arch built by a lady of the
family of the Sergii, in honour of some of her kindred, who commanded in
these countries ; besides several inscriptions and ancient monuments in divers
parts of the town.

In Dalmatia I saw Zahara, anciently called Jadera, which is now the metro-
polis of the country. It is now very well fortified, being encompassed on three
sides with the sea, and that part which is toward the land well defended by
all the contrivances of art, having a castle and a rampart of very lofty bastions
to guard it. Here are several ancient inscriptions. What is most worth seeing
in Dalmatia, is Spalatro ; where is Dioclesian's palace, a vast and stupendous
fabric, where he resided, when he retreated from empire. It is as large as the
whole town ; which indeed is built out of its ruins, and from which it is said to
take its name. The building is massive ; within it is an entire temple of Jupiter,

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS* 285

of 8 sides, with noble porphyry pillars, and admirable cornices. Before it is a
court, adorned with Egyptian pillars of that stone called pyropoicilos, and under
it a temple, now dedicated to St. Lucia; and in the town several fragments of
antiquity, with inscriptions and other things, worth observing.

Four miles from Spalatro lies Salona, which shows the ruins of a large town.
About as much farther from Salona stands Clissa, on a rocky hill, an eminent
fortress of the Venetians, which is here the frontier against the Turks. At
Lesina there is nothing remarkable ; only that Biondi, who wrote our English
history, was a native of it. Trau is ancient, and shows good signs of its being
so. Here I spoke with Doctor Stasileo, who published the fragment of Petro-
nius Arbiter ; the manuscript of which I saw. Passing the gulf of Budua, I
saw the mountains of Antivari, the plain of Durazzo and Apollonia, and came
to Sassino a small island, from whence we could see the town of Valona, and
the mountains Acroceraunia, now called the mountains of Chimaera. — I staid a
fortnight at Corfu, and had time to view all that was considerable in the island,
particularly the gardens of Alcinous, or the place where they are supposed to
have been, now called Chrysida ; a most delicious situation : also the ancient
port, now called Necrothalassa, and several foundations of ancient fabrics. In
Zante I saw but few antiquities. What is modern is very flourishing, and the
island rich and plentiful.

From Zante I went to Patras, a town in Achaia, of good note among the
ancients. Near it is a great mountain, mentioned in Homer by the name of
Petra Olenia. In the town are several massive ruins, and among them the re-
mains of a large church, dedicated to St. Andrea, who, they say, was martyred
there. The plain about it is very fruitful, full of springs and rivulets ; tinely
wooded with olive-trees, cypresses, orange and lemon-trees. The citrons here
are counted the best in the Turkish empire, and are sent as presents to Con-
stantinople. Indeed all their fruits are in very good esteem.

In Athens I spent two months. Next to Rome, I judge it the most worthy
to be seen for antiquities. The temple of Minerva is as entire as the rotunda.
I was three times in it, and took all the dimensions, with what exactness
I could; but it is difficult, because the castle of Athens, in which it stands,
is a garrison, and the Turks are jealous, and brutishly barbarous, if they
perceive that any one measures it. The length of the Cella, or body of the
temple without side, is 1 08 English feet, the breadth ^ 1 . The portico of the
Doric order, which runs round it, has eight pillars in front, and \^ on the sides;
the length of the portico is 230 English feet. The fust or shaft of the pillars,
is 194- feet in circumference: the intercolumnium, \\ of the diameter of the
pillars. — ^The temple of Theseus is likewise entire, but much less, though built

286 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

after the same model : the length of its cella is but 73 feet, the breadth lQ.
The whole length of the portico, which goes round it, 123 feet. It is a Doric
building, as is that of Minerva ; and both are of white marble. — About the
cornice, on the outside of the temple of Minerva, is a basso-relievo of men on
horseback, others in chariots ; and a whole procession of people going to a
sacrifice, of very curious sculpture. On the front is the history of the birth of
Minerva. — In the temple of Theseus on the front, within side the portico, at
the west end, is the battle of the Centaurs ; and at the east end there seems to
be a continuation of that history : There are also several figures of women, who
seem to be Pirithous's bride, and those other ladies that were at the wedding.
On the outside the portico, in the spaces between the Triglyphs, are represent-
ed several of the feats of Theseus, most in wrestling with several persons, in
which he excelled : all his postures and looks are expressed with great art.
Others are monsters, which he is made encountering with, as the bull of
Marathon, the bear of Calydon, &c.

There is a temple of Hercules, a round fabric, only of six feet diameter, but
neat architecture. The pillars are of the Corinthian order, supporting an archi-
trave, and frieze, wherein are done in relievo the labours of Hercules. The top
is one single stone, wrought like a shield, with a flower on the outside, which
rises like a plume of feathers.

The tower of Andronicus Cirrhestes is yet standing; it is an octagon, with
the figures of eight winds, which are large, and of good workmanship; and the
names of the winds remain legible in fair Greek characters, Apeliotes, Euros,
Boreas, Sciron, Zephyros, each wind pointing to its quarter in the heavens ;
and the roof is made of little planks of marble, broad at bottom, and which
meet all in a point at top, making an obtuse pyramid, of about 32 or 36 sides.
In the castle there is a delicate temple of the Ionic order ; the work of which is
very fine, and all the ornaments most accurately engraven : the length is Qy
feet, the breadth 38. — ^The pillars which remain of a portico of the Emperor
Adrian, are very stately and noble: they are of the Corinthian order, and above
52 feet in height, and IQ-i- in circumference, and are channelled; 17 of them
are now standing, with part of their cornice. The area of the building to which
they belong is near 1000 feet in length, and about 680 in breadth.

Without the town, the bridge over the Elissus has three arches, of solid
stone work ; the middlemost being near 20 feet broad. There is still to be seen
the stadium, whose length I measured, and found it 630 feet, near to what the
precise measure of a stadium ought to be, viz. 625. — Towards the southern wall
of the castle, are the remains of the theatre of Bacchus, with the portico of
Eumenes, which is near it ; the semidiameter is about 1 50 feet. The whole
body of the stage 256.

VOL. Xf.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 287

Thebes is a large town about 50 miles distant from Athens, but few anti-
quities are found in it, only some inscriptions and fragments of the old wall,
and one gate, which they say was left by Alexander, when he demolished the
rest.

Corinth is two days journey distant; the castle or Acrocorinthus is standing,
and is very large. Most of the town is demolished, and the remaining houses
are scattered, and at a great distance from one another. So also is Argos,
whose compass is about four or five miles, as the houses now stand, but if they
stood together they would scarcely exceed a good village. Napoli della Romilia,
but a few leagues distant from Argos, is a large town and full of inhabitants,
and where the bashaw of the Morea resides.

Sparta is quite forsaken ; Mestra being the town which is inhabited, four
miles distant from it. Large ruins are seen thereabout, almost all the walls,
several towers, and foundations of temples, with pillars and chapiters, being de-
molished ; a theatre remains pretty entire. It might have been anciently about
five miles in compass, and about a quarter of a mile distant from the river Eu-
rotas. The plain of Sparta and Laconia is very fruitful, long, and well wa-
tered. It may be about 80 miles in length. The mountains on the west side of
it very high, inhabited by the Maniotes. But the plain of Calamatta, which an-
ciently was that of Messene, seems to be richer. Corona is very abundant in
olives. Navarrino, thought to be the ancient Pylos, has a strong castle, forti-
fied by the Turks, and is. the best port in all the Morea. Alpheus is by much
the finest and the deepest river, and justly extolled by all the ancient poets, and
chosen for the seat of the Olympic games. The plains of Elis are very pleasant
and large, fit to breed horses in, and for hunting ; but not so fruitful as that of
Argos and Messene, which are very rich. The best woods I saw in Pelopon-
nesus are those of Achaia, abounding with pines and wild pear, the ilex and
esculus-trees, and where water runs, with plane-trees.

Arcadia is a pleasant champaign, and full of cattle, but is encompassed with
rugged hills. Lepanto is very pleasantly seated on the gulf, which runs up as
far as Corinth ; and without the town is one of the finest fountains in Greece,
very rich in springs of water, and shaded with large plane-trees, not inferior
to the spring of Castalia on Mount Parnassus, which runs through Delphos,
except in this, that the one was chosen by the Muses, and the other not ; and
that poetical fancies have given immortality to the one, and never mentioned
the other. Delphos itself is very oddly situated on a rugged hill, to which is
an ascent of about two or three leagues, and yet that is not a quarter of the way
to come up to the peak of Parnassus, on the side of which hill it stands. It
seems very barren to the eye; but the fruits are very good where there are any.

288 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ' TaNNO I676.

The wines are excellent, and the plants and simples found there very fragrant,
and of great efficacy.

About Lebadia, and all through Bceotia, the plains are very fertile, and make
amends for the barrenness of the hills which encompass them ; but in winter
they are apt to be overflown, and turned into lakes, which renders the Boeotian
air very thick. These vales I found much planted with cotton, and sesamum^
and cummin, of which they make great profit, carrying on a great trade at
Thebes and Lebadia.

From Thebes I went into the island of Euboea or Negropont, and saw the
Euripus, which ebbs and flows much after the manner of our tides ; only the
moon, and sometimes winds, make it irregular. The channel, which runs be-
tween the town and a castle, which stands in an island over against it, is about
50 feet broad, and there are three mills on it which show all the changes and
varieties that happen in the current. Near the Euripus, and opposite to the
town, is shown a port, which they say was Aulis, and it is not improbable;
-for it must be thereabouts. Between Negropont and Athens is a high hill,
called Agiomacuri, formerly very dangerous, but now guarded by Albaneses ;
it is part of Mount Parnassus : and near it on the left hand lies Mount Pentelicus,
from whence the Athenians anciently brought their stone; where is a new con-
vent of Calogeri, one of the richest of all Greece.

In going from Athens by sea, I embarked in a port, which lies just by Mu-
nychia; that which they call Porto Piraso lies behind it, a mile distant, which
is a large port, able to contain 500 vessels. The ruins of the town are yet re-
maining, and of the walls, which joined it to the city of Athens. I sailed by
Porto Phalero, the ancient haven of Athens, which is rather a road than a port.

Advertisements on the Finetum Britannicum, mentioned in the last foregoing
Number, sent to the Editor by the Rev. Dr. J. Beal, Rector of Yeovil in
Somersetshire, and one of his Majesty s Chaplains. N° 124, p. 583.

There is nothing in this paper worth preserving.

The Lunar Eclipse, An. 1676, Jan. 1, in the Morning, N. S. observed at
Dantzic by M. Hevelius. N°124, p. 589.=*=

h m s

Beginning of the penumbra 2 36 40

Beginning of the eclipse 3 30 O

The penumbra vanished 6 8 O

* See on this eclipse Mr. Flamsteed's observation. No. 121 foregoing; also his and Cassini's re-
marks, in this same No. 124, just preceding.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 28^

In this eclipse it is to be noted, that all the sections never entirely covered
Mount Porphyrites: but it remained clear in the very limit of the shadow, even
in the greatest obscuration.

An Account of some Books. N" 124, p. 59 1.

I and II. Memoirespour servir k I'Histoire Naturelledes Animaux; to which
is joined another tract totally different, entituled. La Mesure de la Terre. A
Paris, 1671, in fol.

These two works came from the joint body of the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Paris, being part of their memoirs. They have been partly noticed already
in these Philosophical Transactions, viz. N°* 49 and 1 ] 2, but now again more
particularly.

These memoirs give us the anatomical descriptions of 13 species of exotic
animals; of which five, viz. a cameleon, castor, dromedary, bear, and gazelle,
were formerly published, and described by the same persons in a book in quarto,
printed at Paris, 1669; which now are reprinted here in a more magnificent
manner, and augmented with the number of eight species, which are, two lions
and a lioness, a chat pard, supposed to be engendered by a leopard and a she
cat, a sea fox, a lupus cervarius or lynx, an otter, a civet cat, an elk, and a
coati mondi of Brasil.

First, they discourse of two lions and one lioness, and^ among other obser-
vations, they remark that one of the two male lions sickened of a surfeit: as
having been informed, some months before he died, that he would not only re-
frain coming out of his den, but hardly eat; and that therefore some remedies
were ordered for him, and among the rest, not to eat any other fiesh but that
of young animals, and to eat them alive. To which his keepers, to render this
food the more delicate for him, added the extraordinary preparation of fleai ng
lambs alive, and to let him eat divers of those: which at first recovered him by
restoring his appetite and some chearfulness. But yet, say they, this food in all
appearance bred too much blood, and such as was too subtile for this animal, to
which nature has not given the industry or care of fleaing those creatures it
feeds on, it being probable that the hair, wool, feathers, and shells, which all
animals of prey devour, are a kind of necessary corrective to prevent them from
filling themselves by their greediness with too succulent a food.

Next comes the chat pard, wherein they chiefly note the defect of spermatic
vessels, and of other parts absolutely necessary to generation, which they found
did not proceed from castration, but from some other cause: where they take
occasion to observe, that the sterility which is ordinary in some of those animals
that are born of two different species, must have in this subject a very particular

VOL. II. Pp

ago PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

cause. For, say they, that which renders mules sterile is not the defect of any
of the organs necessary to generation, since the difference which may be found
in the conformation of the matrix of a mare and of that of a she ass cannot, as
some pretend, be a ground of this cause of sterility; the ;mare, in which some-
thing is deficient that is found in the she ass, not being destitute of any of the
parts absolutely necessary to engender, because it does engender; and the dif-
ference of the organs being not the cause of barrenness, forasmuch as the dif-
ference of organs which is between the species of horses and asses, hinders not
the breeding of mules, which issue from the mixture of those two species.
Whence Aristotle, following Empedocles, imputes this defect only to the tem-
perament of those animals, whose parts have contracted a hardness that renders
them incapable to contribute to a new mixture; so that if it be true that most
of the animals which are born of the mixture of two kinds, are notwithstand-
ing fruitful, they are inclined to believe that the conformation of this chat pard
was peculiar and accidental, and that the defect of the parts which it wanted,
and which made it incapable of engendering, proceeded not from that mixture
of species, which by changing the conformation of the parts cannot so spoil the
same as to render it unfit for the functions, and is yet less capable to make a
mutilation; but may more easily cause some vice in the temperament, which is
a very natural sequel of mixture ; and lastly, that it is probable, that if the mule
be the only animal which the confusion of species renders sterile, there is some-
thing particular in those animals that have engendered it, which is not found in
others, and that is perhaps, as Aristotle thinks, the hardness of the matrix in
mares and asses, which like an earth is rendered sterile by driness; whereas
that reason has no place in leopards, foxes, and others, which are animals fe-
cund enough to transmit to their offspring the strong dispositions they have for
generation, notwithstanding the resistance which the mixture of different species
may bring. [Why some hybridous animals are prolific, and the generality of
them not, is a matter wholly inexplicable.]

The third is the sea fox,* in whose stomach they found a branch of the sea
herb varec, and a fish of five inches long, without its head, scales, skin, and
bowels, all having been consumed, except the muscular flesh, which was yet en-
tire. And as to its guts, they observe, that the upper part of them had a peculiar
structure, and instead of the ordinary circumvolutions of guts, the cavity of
these was distinguished by many transverse separations, composed of the mem-
branes of the intestine turned inwards, which separations were half an inch
distant from one another, and turned helically, like a snail shell ; which may

* A species of shark. Squalus vulpes. Linn.

vol" XI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 40t

be considered as the reason that the food is a long while in passing, though the
way be but short.

The fourth is the female lynx, which is one of the animals th^t have short
guts, of which kind the lion is also one, whose guts they found hardly longer
than three times the length of his body: which argues speedy digestion and
great voracity.

. The fifth is the otter, the difference of which from the castor they have very
carefully observed ; as they have also the peculiar connection of the spleen of
the otter, which they say is different from that of almost all other animals, in
which that viscus is generally fastened to the stomach, whereas in this otter it
was fast to the epiploon. And as to a foramen ovale they have found no ap-
pearance in this otter, that it had ever had a hole that could give passage to the
blood from the vena cava into the arteria venosa; which, they say, agrees well
enough with that remark which all the ancients have made, viz. that the otter
is constrained from time to time to rise above the water to breathe, which a
castor does not, as having a far greater facility to be a long while without res*
piration.

The sixth is the civet cat, which they were glad they had the opportunity to
compare with a castor, as those two animals agree in those organs that are very
peculiar to them, which are the receptacles wherein that liquor is collected that
is so remarkable for its scent, but is very sweet in the one, and very unpleasant
in the other. Which made them search whether there was not some particular
reason of this diversity of smell; but to them it appeared not that there was
any other cause than the diversity of the temperament of these animals, the
civet cat being hot and dry, drinking little, and living in hot and dry countries;
but the castor, living now in the water then upon the earth, and being a very
moist creature, has not heat enough to concoct and perfect its humidity.

They had, it seems, two of these cats, a male and a female, which were so
like one another outwardly, that there was not so much as any distinction of
sex that appeared; the male, on the dissection, being found to have its genitals
hid and shut up within, and the vessel that contains the odoriferous liquor being
altogether alike in both. Which vessel is a pouch or sack under the anus, not
under the tail, as Aristotle puts it in his hyena, which they make the same with,
the civet cat, and is different from the matrix, both very accurately described
by them. As to the odoriferous liquor, they found it come forth in the male as
well as the female, out of a great number of glandules that are between the two
coats that compose the pouches, which were in the male very large, and very
small in the female ; the male yielding also a civet more pleasant than the female,
•though authors generally affirm the contrary. They found not that the smell

p p2

QQ2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

of the civet becomes more perfect by being kept a while, nor that it is of an
offensive smell when new, as Amat. Lusitanus affirms; this smell not seeming
to them better after a year's time than at the time of the dissection.

The seventh is the elk, of which they examine very solicitously its claws,
together with the tradition of this animal curing itself of the epilepsy, to which
it is said to be very subject, by putting one of his feet into his ear; whence
the claw of that foot is also much celebrated among the vulgar, as a specific
against that distemper. Of its brain they take notice, that the glandula pi-
nealis was of an extraordinary size; and consider that lions, bears, and other
bold and fierce animals, have that part so very small that it is hardly discernible,
and that the same is exceedingly large in those that are very timorous, as the elk;
this animal being esteemed to be so fearful that it even dies of fear when it has
received the slightest wound, it having been observed that it never survives
when it sees any of its own blood.

The eighth and last is the coati mondi, a Brasilian animal, recorded by Mar-
grave, de Laet, and others, in whose books the description of that animal differs
only in the description here made of it, that in the former the authors describe
not their teeth, which have a peculiar conformation, nor the spurs on their
feet ; and that they make its tail much longer than the whole body ; which in
this coati was but short in comparison; but it may have been eaten off by the
animal itself, as de Laet says, that this kind of creatures are wont to gnaw
their tail,* and sometimes quite off, which when they do they die of it.

The other treatise, being a new and very accurately performed Mensuration
of the Earth, has been fully described in N*' 1 12 of these tracts.

III. Britannia Antiqua illustrata; or, the Antiquities of ancient Britain, de-
rived from the Phoenicians, &c. The first volume. By Aylett Sammes, of
Christ's College in Cambridge, since of the Inner Temple, London, 1676.

The learned and curious undertaker of this great work has endeavoured, in
this his first volume, after Bochart, to attribute the first discovery of Britain to
the Phoenicians, and to make a German nation, and not the Gauls, the first
planters of it, and to impute that near agreement which was between the an-
cient Britons and Gauls, in point of language and customs, not to their being
originally the same people, but to the joint commerce with the Phoenicians, the
ancient and great navigators throughout the world.

From this commerce with the Phoenicians he deduces the original trade of
this island, the names of places, offices, and dignities, as also the language,
manners, idolatry, and other customs of the primitive inhabitants, illustrating

* Monkeys are also apt to gnaw their tails.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 293

many old monuments out of approved Greek and Latin authors; delivering also
a chronological history of this kingdom, from the first traditional beginning
until the year of our Lord 800, when the name of Britain was changed for that
of England; together with the antiquities of the Saxons as well as the Phoeni-
cians, Greeks, and Romans, having prefixed a curious map of the ancient
world, representing the progress of the Phoenicians in their remote voyages,
and the countries which they discovered, with the names they imposed on
them.

To observe some of the things that are most suitable to the nature of these
tracts ; I shall first take notice of that inquiry, whether Britain was ever part of
the continent? which he answers in the negative by various arguments, parti-
cularly that which, from the likeness of the soil, concludes a conjunction of
earth: and shows that it was nothing more than the same vein of ground which
ran under water from one country to another, which he illustrates from philo-
sophical considerations.

Secondly, I shall take notice of the most ancient philosophical order of peo-
ple in Britain, the bards, a Phoenician appellation of men, who in poetical
strains were wont to sing, not only of the praises of the Gods, the essence and
immortality of the soul, the virtues of great men, but also of the works of na-
ture, the course of celestial bodies, and the order and harmony of the spheres;
though afterwards by their degeneracy they gave an opportunity to the druids to
get the upper hand of them; who yet notwithstanding did not abolish all the
customs and doctrines of the bards, but retained the most useful parts of them,
of which that of the immortality of the soul was one, to which they added the
soul's transmigration, according to the opinion of Pythagoras; about whose
time, or a little after. It Is believed that the Greeks entered this island. These
druids had, after the bards, a government that was universal over the whole
country, both in civil and religious affairs ; and they were exempt both from the
services of war, and from paying any taxes; by which immunities many were
invited to enter themselves Into that order and discipline. It seems this order
of men was In so great reputation, that the Gauls, though they had themselves
druids in their country, yet sent their children into Britain, to be instructed in
the mysteries of the druids here.

Thirdly, that as the Britons were originally a branch of the Cimbri, a peo-
ple of Germany, who anciently came and seated themselves in Britain ; so the
Saxons that were invited hither after a revolution of so many ages from that
time, were a true branch of those very CImbrI that had seated themselves so
long ago before them in this Island. Nor need It to be wondered that if the
ancient Britons and the later Saxons be derived from the same stock, (the Cim-

394 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO I676.

bri), they should understand nothing of each other's language at the Saxons
entrance : for the continuance of time, and the mixture of the Britons with the
Phoenicians, Grecians, Gauls and Romans, in several ages, might be the cause
of that difference ; though it is not to be doubted but that there are many words
in the British tongue which agree with the Saxon, and which probably they had
in use long before the arrival of the Saxons themselves.

Of Shining Flesh. By Dr. J. Beal. N° 125, p. SQQ.

At Yeoval, in Somersetshire, a neck of veal, which seemed to be well co-
loured, and in good condition in every respect, being killed in the evening of
the day before, was hung to a shelf in a little chamber. The following day in
the evening, the veal shone so bright that the woman of the house was affright-
ed. She calls up her husband; who hastens to the light, as fearing fire, and
seeing the light come only from the flesh, he caught it in his left hand, and
struck it with his right hand, as endeavouring to extinguish the flame, but
without effect; as the flesh shone as much as before, if not more, and his hand
with which he struck the flesh appeared all in a flame, as bright and vivid as the
flesh of the veal was, and so it continued, whilst he went from place to place,
showing it to others. And though he thrust his blazing hand into a pail of
water, the flame was not extinguished ; but his hand shone through the water:
at last he took a napkin and wiped his hand, till he wiped off all the light. The
next day the veal was dressed, and it eat very well.

Another time boiling the chitterlings and feet of a porker, and when cold,
putting them into souse liquor or pickle, in a low room to the north, which
had little light at mid-day, and was very dark, as soon as night set in : in four
days all those parts of the guts, and the claws of the feet, which floated on the
top of the pickle, began to shine, but the parts immersed under water gave no
light ; the light increased daily more and more in all the parts that floated. In
three days more, the light seemed as bright as the clearest moon-shine ; and
thus it continued to shine, but fainter and fainter, and in fewer parts, almost a
week longer ; for, being often tumbled about, by degrees the whole sunk into
the pickle, and then all the light ceased. Whilst the light was vivid, by rubbing
the hands on the shining part, a strong light was communicated to them. Sus-
pecting this luminousness might be owing to the pickle, the pork was wiped
dry with a napkin, yet the flame was rather increased than diminished. No
perceptible warmth was found in these parts. I noted that by this acquired
blaze, the face and hands appeared a great deal larger than they really were. —
The pickle in which the pork was put, was made only of pure water, bran, and
bay-salt, and so far from shining, that it quenched the light by degrees of some

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 205

shining flesh ; whereas the mackerel-pickle, mentioned in N° 13, which was
boiled with a mixture of sweet herbs, by a little stirring became so luminous,
that a drop of it in the palms of children's hands, appeared as broad as a shilling,
or broader.

It is to be noted, that the jnackerel-pickle was thick and not transparent, till
it was stirred and flaming ; the pork-pickle was clear or transparent, yet shined
not in any part.

A Discourse concerning the Spiral, instead of the supposed Annular, Structure of
the Fibres of the Intestines. By Dr. Wm. Cole. N° 12,5, p. 603.

The mechanical reason of the peristaltic motion of the intestines, is by some
anatomists deduced principally from annular fibres, constituting according to the
received doctrine, one of their coats ; others are of opinion, that they might
be rather numerous, though small, sphincter-muscles, than single fibres, to
which that motion is to be attributed ; muscles being in most, if not all other
instances, acknowledged to be the adequate instruments of motions analogous to
this ; and fibres, though absolutely necessary, yet being no otherwise so than as
a number of them being collected and fitly disposed, they constitute a muscle.

This conjecture seemed to me more probable, than the vulgarly received
opinion : but yet several difficulties occurred to me, which ever of the two sup-
positions were adopted. — For, first, I conceived it might be doubted, how the
actuating matter or impression should be transmitted from one fibre or muscle
to another, along the whole tract of the intestines; since nature's usual way for
the propagation of animal motion, is by a continuation of vessels, or at least
fibres, whether they be concave or not, from the part where it begins to that
to which it is imparted, either for the conveyance of some actuating substance,
or the communicating an impression. But there being in the annular supposi-
tion no such continuation of vessels or fibres, a lateral contiguity being all that
can be pretended, it might perhaps be urged, that the influent and moving
matter might be transmitted by mutual inosculations between the contiguous
fibres along their sides ; which, if there be no communication by vessels, was
the only way I could solve the doubt ; for the notion of an impression would
hardly serve, since it seemed not evident, that there could be in that supposition
of a continuity of fibres, tensity enough in the intestines to carry on such a
motion. But to this I considered — Secondly, That such a supposition seemed
not very agreeable to nature's methods, which ordinarily makes use of vessels,
for the transmission of the fluid substances in the bodies of animals, not lateral
emissaries ; except where some great inconvenience is designed to be prevented
by the help of such conveyances ; as, for instance, by the anastomoses, dis-

2gQ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO lOjQ.

covered to be between veins and between arteries, in which vessels the blood
running with a large and rapid stream, should any of them chance to be ob-
structed, the circulation so necessary to life must needs be intercepted, without
some lateral conveyance of it into others of the same kind : which inconveni-
ence yet I supposed would hardly be alleged in thp present case ; that fabric of
those vessels seeming to be designed for extraordinary emergencies, but these
being according to the present supposition, the constant and necessary ducts of
this actuating matter. But nevertheless — ^Thirdly, It seemed difficult to solve
this intestinal contraction, though these lateral apertures were supposed : for if
fibres, whether considered as single or as constituting a muscle, be contracted
according to their length from some influent matter, it must be from a disten-
sion of them in breadth ; and, in order to that, this matter must undergo some
confinement in the part to be distended ; but if they have lateral perforations,
how c^n it be supposed that such a distension can happen, when the matter de-
signed to effect it has so ready a passage forth, especially its determination from
the impelling cause being in right lines downward? But indeed I think no
anatomists have observed, that muscles, supposing these such, receive their
actuating matter in at their sides, or, when their motion ceases, send it forth
that way ; but all so far as has been observed, are fenced with a considerably
compact and comparatively impervious membrane. — Fourthly, I considered that
all muscles are observed to have two tendons, one at each extremity, by the
approach of one whereof toward the other, its motion, which is contraction, is
performed ; but it seems hard to conceive, that these tendons should coincide,
as in this supposition they must, and if they do, I presumed it would be diffi-
cult to determine what part of these circular muscles the tendons are, and where
the motion should begin in each ; it being observed, that all muscles are
fastened to some, either simply or comparatively, immovable part, toward
\vhich they move, and by which the instinct of motion is from the nerves con-
veyed to them : but no anatomists having discovered that any one part of these
muscles, or moving fibres, whichsoever they be, has any stricter cohesion than
another with any of the adjacent parts, I conceived I might be allowed the liberty
to doubt of the hypothesis, especially if I could satisfy myself better by another.
For instead of those solutions, there occurred to me a third way, which seemed
more mechanically adjusted to solve the phenomenon, viz. That those fibres,
which have been esteemed annular, might perhaps be spiral, and so be con-
tinued down in one tract to the lowest extremity of the intestines : which if
true, it seemed probable to me, that when either a bare motion shall be im-
pressed on them at their beginning, or any substance impelled into them, the
motion must be successively continued all along their tracts, and must there-

VOL. Xr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 297

fore whilst it lasts, by abbreviating these fibres, straiten the intestine, and so
thrust forward what is contained in it, especially if they proved to have a muscular
fabric. I afterwards put this to the experiment, which I first made in a portion
in the upper intestines of an ox, which, by reason of their largeness of propor-
tion to those of most other species of animals, seemed fittest for the trial ; after-
wards in those of sheep and calves, beside the repetition of it in oxen, and not
only in the smaller intestines, but in the colon and coecum also. The circum-
stances and result of which trials are as follow : —

To effect a due disjunction of the membranes and fibres I caused the in-
testines of oxen to be boiled five or six hours, of sheep 4 ; whereby the parts
were so loosened, that the two outward coats, viz. the common one, and that
consisting of right fibres, were easily separated soon after taken out of the
water, leaving those reputed annular ones naked. These at the top of the in-
testine I attempted to separate from each other; and when those which had
been decurtated by the unequal cutting of the knife, were taken off, I found,
first, that I could not separate a single fibre from its fellows to any considerable
distance, all of them appearing to be very small, and in the separation running
smaller and smaller, and by reason of their implication or stricter cohesion one
with another easily breaking; but a congeries of them, which at first view
would resemble a pretty large fibre, would without much difficulty rise together ;
the very small constituting fibres of which clusters yet, if the boiling had been
very long continued, whereby the compages were very much relaxed, would in
the raising be very apt to separate from each other, and appear distinct, by
reason of their insertions, mentioned below. Secondly, that when beginning
at the top, I attempted the separation of one of these supposed annular clusters
of fibres towards my right hand, a whole ring would come off together, which
at first staggered me as to my forementioned conjecture; but trying it to-
wards my left, I found, for the most part, I could easily enough unravel that
cluster to a considerable length, viz. that of sometimes more than two or three
spans, before breaking, of the whole cluster I mean, which yet at last it would
be subject to. For, thirdly, though those convolutions mostly appeared dis-
tinct, yet I found that from every one of them at short distances some fibres
did obliquely, according to the course of those I have mentioned, insert them-
selves into the next convolution, and become a part of it; though some I ob-
served to have a contrary tendency, or rather seemed to ascend from the lower
to the upper convolution, and help to constitute it, and so to observe the course
mentioned; nay, sometimes would go farther than the next convolution, and,
running under it, apply themselves obliquely to some higher, which yet being
in a smaller number than the rest that lay in the order contrary to them, did
VOL. II. Q a

2"98 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTION'S. [aNNO I676

not very much hinder the dissociation of the main ones : which fibres breaking
ofF, and that in some places in greater numbers than in others, would at last
cause the whole cluster to break off. — Fourthly, I observed, that as most
of these fibres would by degrees, according to the order of the convolutions
insert themselves into the next, so some of them would pass over it, and more
would run under it, and either adjoin themselves to some more remote, or elude
my searching by hiding themselves under them. This insertion of these fibres
seems to be the reason of the annular phasis before mentioned, in the contrary
way of separation. Fifthly, If I began at a lower part of the intestine, and
tried to unravel upwards, there was not much more difiiculty than when,
beginning above, I attempted it downwards. — Sixthly, when before boiling I
caused the inside of the intestine to be turned outward, as I did in two trials,
and afterward by taking off the glandular and vascular coats endeavoured to
unravel the fibres, I found they would come ofi^ in the contrary order, viz. from
my left hand toward my right ; which, I conceive, confirms the observation
above delivered, in regard the intestine being inverted, the order of separation
must be so too. — Seventhly, in one of these attempts of unravelling the fibres
of the intestine of an ox, so inverted, I found that, though the fibres taken up
came off in the order just now mentioned, yet running over some others, they
made a more oblique excursion, and for two or three convolutions left between
them a considerable area of fibres, amounting to five or six times or more the
breadth of those that so came off, till going deeper and deeper among the other
fibres, and at last running under them, they could be no longer traced, but
brake off. — Eighthly, I found it much more difi5cult to unravel the fibres of
the coecum, than the other intestine, which seemed more interwoven than those
of the rest, and to have contrary tendencies one among another.

This is the sum of my observations hitherto concerning this coat, which I
take leave to think one concave and helical muscle, if I may so stile it : and that
it might be supposed such, the forementioned insertions seemed to evidence,
appearing in the separating appositely enough to represent the fabric of a muscle
delivered by the accurate Steno. Where the tendons of it are fixed, is not
evident ; but, if I may have the liberty to conjecture, I should think the upper
of them to be radicated at the pylorus, (since the carneous coat of the stomach
being by the learned Dr. Willis found to be a muscular contexture, and there
being a continuation of motion between that part and the intestines, it seems to
me not altogether improbable they may be but one muscle ;) and the other at
the anus.*

* Notwithstanding Dr. Cole's observations, the fact remains as before j viz. the " supposed an-
uular" fibres of the intestines are annular, (or rather falciform) and not spiral.

roL. XI.]

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

^99

Paris,
by Bulliald.

Paris,
by Hecker.

Strasburg,
by Richelt.

London.

h. m. 8.

h. m.

s.

h. m. 8.

h.

m. s.

2 22 30

2 8

0

2 48 48

2

l6 0

3 18 14

3 20

18

3 45 l6

3

11 37

4 13 56

4 32

36

4 41 44

4

7 15

1 51 26

2 24

36

1 52 56

1

51 15

3° 21' -—

4° 24'

31'/

Further Observations of the Lunar Eclipse* of Jan. 1, 1676, N, S. By M.
Bulliald, Riclielt, Hecker, ^c. N° 125, p. 6 10.

Observed at

Phases.

Beginning of eclipse. . . .
Greatest obscuration. . . .

End of eclipse

Total duration

Digits eclipsed

It appears, from these observations, compared with calculations from the
then existing tables, that the Rudolphine tables differ considerably from the
truth, both for duration and magnitude ; but the Philolaic tables less.

^n Account of some Books. N° 125, p. 611.

I. Nicolai Mercatoris Holsati, e Soc. Regia, Institutionum Astronomicarum
Libri duo, de Motu Astrorum Communi et Proprio, secundum Hypotheses
Veterum et Recentiorum praecipuas; deque Hypothesewn ex Observatis Con-
structione : cum Tabulis Tychonianis Solaribus, Lunaribus, Lunae-Solaribus,
et Rudolphinis, Solis, Fixarum, et quinque Errantium, earumque Usu, Prae-
ceptis et Exemplis commonstrato : subnexa Appendice eorum, quae novissimis
temporibus caelitus innotuerunt. Lond. 1676, in 8vo.

This learned and industrious mathematician comprehends in these institutions
the sum and substance of astronomy. And though many authors before him
have treated this science well, particularly Maestlin, Kepler, Riccioli, and
Gassendi, yet he pursues several things differently from others, and insists on
such particulars as he thought most pertinent to his purpose. For besides the
chief use of both the globes in some considerable problems, and the trigono-
metrical calculation employed in the doctrine of the sphere ; he has fully ex-
plained the equation of time, in both the Ptolomaean and Copernican system, as
also the lunar hypothesis of Tycho, and the eliptical of the planets : nor has he
been less solicitous in teaching how to raise hypotheses from observations, and
in delivering the calculus of the celestial motions from the most approved tables:

* See several other observations of this eclipse, in some of the preceding Numbers.

act 2

300 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

explaining also with exactness the Keplerian hypothesis of the planets, and sub-
joining the astronomical hypotheses of Ward, Bulliald, and his own, which last
he esteems new, and according to which he teaches how to make a calculus ^
priori, comparing the same with good observations. The whole he concludes
with the exposition of the late discoveries made in the heavens.

II. Observations sur les Eaux Minerales de plusieurs Provinces de France,
faites enl'Academie Royale des Sciences, en I'annee 1670, et 1671, par le Sieur
du Clos, Conseiller et Medecin ordinaire du Roy, de la dite Academic. A
Paris, 1675, in llvno.

This account of mineral waters, like all other treatises thereon published at this
period of time, is filled either with vague conjectures or erroneous assertions.
Among the modern descriptions and analyses of the mineral waters of France,
those by Cadet, Bayen, Venel, Deyeux, Carrere, Fourcroy, &c. deserve to be
particularly consulted.

III. Cochlearia Curiosa, or the Curiosities of Scurvy-grass, written in Latin
by Dr. Andr. Molimbrochius of Leipsig, and translated by Dr. Th. Sherley,
Physician in ordinary to his Majesty. Lond. in 8vo. 1676.

Scurvy-grass is not now in that high estimation in which it formerly stood.

IV. Two Treatises, the one Medical, of the Gout ; by Herman Busschof,
Senior, of Utrecht, residing at Batavia in the East Indies ; the other partly
Chirurgical, partly Medical, containing some Observations and Practices re-
lating to some Extraordinary Cases of Women in Travail, and to some other
uncommon Cases of Diseases in both Sexes ; by Hen. van RoonhuysCj Physi-
cian in ordinary at Amsterdam. Translated from the Dutch. London, in 8vo.
1676.

In the 1 st of these treatises, the author after giving it as his opinion, that
the seat of the gout is within the periosteum, proceeds to describe from experi-
ence, both made upon himself and others, the cure of the gout, by burning
with a soft and woolly substance, called moxa, made by a skilful preparation
of a certain dried herb, highly valued by the Chinese and Japonese ; of which
he sent over a quantity to his brother at Utrecht, from whence Mr. Pitt, in St.
Paul's Church-yard, has procured a parcel for the use of those that are desirous
to employ it, not only for this purpose of curing the gout, but also for that of
removing epilepsy, madness, and catalepsy.

The other treatise contains several happy cures of strange ruptures and other
remarkable accidents of the womb ; the manner of performing the Caesarean
section, of curing the falling down of the womb, of curing wombs closed, and
several closures of the vagina uteri, of a happy cure of a child's fundament
closed, and of the rupture of a bladder ; of the firm union of the dura mater to

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 301

the skull ; of the modern use and abuse of trepanning, which is here showed
not to be so often necessary nor useful as is commonly pretended ; of grievous
wounds in the head well cured without the trepan ; of the manner of cutting
hare-lips, and several successful operations thereof; of the happy cure of a
wounded nerve, &c.

V. New and Curious Observations of the Art of Curing the Venereal Disease,
&c. Written in French by M. de Blegny, Surgeon to the French Queen;
translated by Walter Harrys, M. D. late Fellow of New College in Oxford.
Lond. 1676, in 8vo.

^n Account of Virginia, its Situation, Temperature, Productions, Inhabitants,
and their manner of planting and ordering Tobacco, ^c. Communicated by
Mr, Thomas Glover, an ingenious Surgeon that lias lived some Years in that
Country. N° 126, p. 623.

There is little in this paper worth preserving, except the account of a cer-
tain marine animal, which is as follows : As I was coming down the Rapahan-
nock. river in a sloop bound for the bay, it happened to prove calm; at which
time we were three leagues short ot the river's mouth; the tide of ebb
being then done, the sloop man dropped his graplin, and he and his boy took
a little boat belonging to the sloop, in which they went ashore for water, leaving
me aboard alone, in which time I took a small book out of my pocket and sat
down at the stern of the vessel to read. But I had not read long before I heard
a great rushing and flashing of the water, which caused me suddenly to look
up, and about half a stone's cast from me appeared a most prodigious creature,*
much resembling a man, only somewhat larger, standing right up in the water,
with his head, neck, shoulders, breast, and waste, to the cubits of his arms,
above water ; his skin was tawny, much like that of an Indian ; the figure of his
head was pyramidal, and smooth, without hair ; his eyes large and black, as
were also his eye-brows ; his mouth very wide, with a broad black streak on the
upper lip, which turned upwards at each end like mustachios ; his countenance
was grim and terrible; his neck, shoulders, arms, breast, and waste, were like
those of a man; his hands, if he had any, were underwater; he seemed to
stand with his eyes fixed on me for some time, and afterwards dived down; but
a little after rose at somewhat a farther distance, and turned his head towards
me again, and then immediately fell a little under water, and swam away so near
the top of the water, that I could discern him throw out his arms and gather

• In all probability some species either of phoca or trichechus.

302 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

them in, as a man does when he swims. At last he shot with his head down-
wards, by which means he cast his tail above the water, which exactly resem-
bled the tail of a fish, with a broad fan at the end of it.

As to the timber of this country there are divers kinds, four several sorts o(
oak, very tall and smooth. There is also another sort of timber called hickery,
harder than any oak. There are also very large and tall poplars, and in some
parts of the country great store of pines, fit for masts of ships ; there are like-
wise black walnut, cypress, cedar, dogwood, ash, elm, gum-tree, locust, ches-
nut, hasel, sassafras, holly, elder, with several others.

As to the fruit trees of the country it affords great plenty: for there are few
planters but that have fair and large orchards, some whereof have twelve hun-
dred trees and upward, bearing all sorts of English apples, as pear-mains, pip-
pins, russetens, costards, marigolds, kings-apples, magitens, batchelors, and
many others, of which they make great store of cider. Here are likewise great
peach orchards, yielding such an infinite quantity of peaches, that at some
plantations they beat down to the hogs 40 bushels in a year. Here are also
great store of quinces, which are larger and fairer than those of England, and
not so harsh in taste; of the juice of these they also make quince drink. Here
are likewise apricots, and some sorts of English plums, but these do not
ripen so kindly as they do in England. There are some sorts of pears, but at
very few plantations; I have seen the bergamy, warden, and two or three other
sorts, and these are as fair, large, and pleasant, as they are in England. Here
grow as good figs as in Spain, but there are few planted as yet. Those that
take the pains to plant gooseberries have them ; but I never saw any of our
English currants (riberries) there, and it is observed that oranges and lemons
will not grow there; though they do in more northern countries. There are
also plenty of mulberry-trees about their houses; these were planted at first to
feed silk- worms, but that design failing, they are now of little use amongst
them. The meanest planter has store of cherries, and they are all over Vir-
ginia as plentiful as they are in Kent. The cherry-trees grow more large ge-
nerally than they do in England, and bear more plentifully, without any pains
taking of digging about them, or pruning them. There grows wild in some
places of the woods a plum somewhat like our wheat-plum : but it exceeds it,
being much more succulent. In the woods there are abundance of vines, which
twine about the oaks and poplars, running up to the top of them; these bear a
kind of claret-grapes, of which some few of the planters make wine. It is
somewhat smaller than French claret; probably through want of cultivation.
There is also in the woods a little shrub, bearing a berry like our elderberry,
and is very pleasant to eat.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 303

Their gardens have all sorts of English pot-herbs, greens, and sallads. Also
roses and other flowers. There grow wild in the woods plantane of all sorts,
yellow-dock, bur-dock, Solomon's-seal, agrimony, centory, scabious, groundsel,
dwarf-elder, yarrow, purslane, and white maiden-hair, the best that ever I saw.
Upon the sides of the hills, asarum, and on the bayside, soldanella, or sea-
scurvy-grass in great plenty.

Here grows the serpen taria nigra, the root of which was so much used in the last
great pestilence, that the price of it advanced from ten shillings to three pounds
sterling a pound; here is also a herb which some call dittany, others pepper-
wort ; it is not dittany of Candia, nor English dittander ; it grows a foot or a
foot and a half high ; the leaves are about the breadth of a groat, and figured
like a heart, and shot out of the stalk and branches one of a side directly oppo-
site to each other ; it smells hot like pepper, and bites on the tongue. The
water of this herb distilled out of an alembick, is one of the best things I know
to drive worms out of the body, and an ounce of this water taken causes per-
spiration plentifully. There are great numbers of other herbs, whose names,
nature, virtues, and operations, are altogether unknown to us in Europe,
neither have there been any physicians in those parts that have made it their
business to understand much of them ; but if the use of them were well known,
it might prove a great and beneficial addition to the materia medica.

There are also divers kinds of small birds, of which the mocking-bird, the
red-bird, and humming-bird, are the most remarkable ; the first for variety and
sweetness of notes, the second for his colour, and the last for the small ness of
his body. As to the mocking-bird, besides his own natural notes, which are
many and pleasant, he imitates all the birds in the woods, from whence he takes
his name; he sings not only in the day but also at all hours in the night, on the
tops of the chimneys; he has strange motions in his flying, sometimes flutter-
ing in the air with his head right down and tail up, other times with his tail
down and head up. Being kept tame he is very docile. The red-bird takes his
name from his colour, being all over of a pure blood-red. The humming-
bird takes his name from the noise he makes in flying; this is of divers colours,
and not much larger than a hornet, and yet has all the parts of a bird entire.

There are five or six sorts of snakes, amongst which the rattle-snake is
most remarkable, being about the size of a man's leg, and for the most part a
yard and a half long; he has a rattle at the end of his tail making a noise when
any one approaches him ; which seems to be a peculiar providence of God to
warn people to avoid the danger.

The Indians are generally well proportioned as to their stature, being some-
what tall, but no ways corpulent; their hair black, usually hanging right down j

304 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I676.

their eyes also black; their skin tawny, inclining to blacklshness ; they live to-
gether in towns, and every town is under a several king. At the first coming
of the English, divers towns had two or three thousand bowmen in them ; but
now, in the southern parts of Virginia, the largest Indian town has not above
500 inhabitants; many towns have scarcely 60 bowmen in them, and in one town
there are not above 20; and they are so universally thinned in the foremen-
tioued southern part, that I verily believe there are not above 3000 left under
the whole government of Sir Will. Bartlet; but in my Lord Baltimore's terri-
tories, at the head of the bay, where the English were later seated, they are
more numerous, there being still in some towns about 3000 Indians. But these
being in continual wars with each other, are likely soon to be reduced to as
small numbers as the former. Instead of clothes they wear a deer-skin tacked
about their middle, and another about their shoulders; and for shoes they have
pieces of deer-skin tied about their feet. Their habitations are cabins about
nine or ten feet high, which are made after this manner : they fix poles into the
ground, and bring the tops of them one within another, and so tie them toge-
ther: the outside of these poles they line with bark to defend them from the
injuries of the weather, but they leave a hole on the top, right in the middle of
the cabin, for the smoke to go out; round the inside of their cabins they have
banks of earth cast up, which serve instead of stools and beds ; they have no
kind of houshold stuff, but earthen pots, wooden bowls, and thin mats to lie
on ; all which they make themselves. Their diet is Indian corn, venison, wild
turkeys, oysters, and all kind of fish the rivers afford, and all kind of wild
beasts of the woods. They are prohibited the keeping either cows, sheep, or
hogs, by the English, lest they should make bold with more than their own.
They formerly took their fish after an odd manner, before the English came
amongst them, which was thus: at the head of their canoes they fixed a hearth,
on which in a dark night they would make a blaze with fire put to the shivers
of pine-tree, then they would paddle their canoes along the shore in shoal-
water; the fish seeing the light would come as thick as they could swim by each
other about the head of the canoes ; then with sticks that were pointed very
sharp at the ends, they would strike through them and lift them up into the
canoe. But now they have learned of the English to catch fish with hook and
line, and sometimes the English use their way in dark nights, only they strike
with an instrument of iron somewhat like mole-tines.

As to their worship I know little of it; only they have priests which are gene-
rally thought to be conjurers; for, when they have great want of rain, one of
their priests will go into a private cabin, and by his invocations will cause abun-
dance to fall immediately, which they call making of rain. They offer the first

VOL. XI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 305

fruits of all things; the first deer they kill after they are in season, they lay pri-
vately on the head of a tree near the place where they killed it, and they say,
no good luck will befal them that year if they do not offer the first of every
thing. They burn the bodies of the dead, and sow up the ashes in mats, which
they place near the cabins of their relations.

jidvertisement concerning the Quantity of a Degree of a great Circle, in English

Measures. N*' 126, p. 636.

Some time since an account was given* concerning the quantity of a degree
of a great circle, according to the tenor of a printed French discourse, entitled
De la Mesure de la Terre. The editor not then knowing what had been done
of that nature here in England, but having been since directed to the perusal
of a book, composed and published by that known mathematician Richard Nor-
wood in the year l636, entitled The Seaman's Practice, wherein, among other
particulars, the compass of the terraqueous globe, and the quantity of a degree
in English measures are delivered, approaching very near to that which has
been lately observed in France ; he thought it would much conduce to mutual
confirmation, in a summary narrative to take public notice here of the method
used by the said English mathematician, and of the result of the same; which,
in short, is as follows:

An. 1635, Mr. Norwood, reader of the mathematics in London, observed as
exactly as he could, the summer solstitial meridian altitude of the sun in the
middle of the city of York, by an arch of a sextant of more than five feet
radius, and found it to be 5Q° 33'; and formerly, viz. An. l633, he had ob-
served the like altitude in the city of London, near the Tower, to be 62° l';
the difference between which numbers gives 2° 28' for the difference of latitude
between those two cities. Whereupon he actually measured for the most part the
way from York to London with chains, and where he measured not, he paced it,
saying, that through custom he usually came very near the truth ; observ ing all
the way he came, with a circumferentor, all the principal angles of position or
windings of the way, with a competent allowance for other lesser windings^
ascents, and descents ; not laying these down by a protractor after the usual
manner, but framing a table, much exacter and fitter for this purpose. And by
this method and measure he found the parallel of York from that of London
to be 9149 chains, every chain being 6 poles or 99 feet, ]6i- English feet to a
pole. Now these 9 149 chains being equal to 2° 28', the aforesaid difference of

* See No. 1 12 and No. 124 of these Tracts.
VOL. II. Re

306 FHItOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676,

latitude between those two cities, a little calculation makes it appear, that one
degree of a great circle, measured on the earth, is 367 1 96 of our feet, in round
numbers 367200, or 22234 poles, which make 556 furlongs and 14 poles, or
6gi English miles and 14 poles, 8 furlongs to a mile, and 40 poles to a fur-
long. Which being compared to that measure of a degree, which is delivered
in the above-mentioned French discourse, will be found to come very near it,
they finding 73 miles nearly, at 5000 feet to an English mile, which make
365000 feet; whereas the 6g^ English miles and 14 poles, found by Mr. Nor-
wood, amount to 367 200 feet, reckoning 5280 feet to an English mile, as the
true measure of it is ; whence the difference between these two measures ap-
pears to be no more than 2200 feet, which is not half an English mile by 440
feet.

From hence the whole circumference, as also the diameter and semidiameter
of the said terraqueous globe, according to this measure may be easily found,
viz.

The circumference 25056 miles.

The diameter 7966.*

Observations made of the late Solar Eclipse on the 1st of June, 1676, 0. S.

N° 126, p. 637.

1st. By Francis Smethwich, Esquire, as follows,

h. m.
The beginning of the eclipse at Westminster. ... 7 50

The end was at 9 54^-

Therefore the whole duration was 2 44

The times taken by a pendulum clock, vibrating seconds, and corrected by
observations.

The telescope a good one, of 7-|- feet.

* This measurement of the earth at so early a date^ by our countryman Norwood, is very ingeni-
ously devised, and simply executed, reflecting on him considerable credit as an individual, whose
means and convenience for tlie performance were small and humble. The deviation from an accu-
rate result is also not so considerable as might be expected firom the rude manner of his measuring
with a chain, in all directions along the high road, to the right and left, as well as up and down hill,
and sometimes only by pacing or stepping the distances. It seems however he did not make a sufli-
cient allowance for those zigzag directions and estimations, as his conclusion gives the mean length of
a degree of latitude too much by almost half a mile, viz. 69^ miles to a degree, instead of -69-^, as
deduced from many later and more accurate measurements. Of these a ftdl account is given in ray
[Dr. Huttoris] Philosophical Dictionary, under the articles degree and earih, where the particulars
, relating to them may be seen.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SOf

2d. Bi/ Mr. Colson, at JVappingy near London.

h. m. ■.

4- Digit was observed eclipsed at... 7 51 31

3-rV 8 23 21

4 9 49 O

The eclipse was not ended at 9 55 36 »

It was observed as ended at g 57 6

The times corrected by observed altitudes.

An Account of some Books. N° 126, p. 638.

I. Elemens des Mathematiques, ou Principes Generaux de toutes les Sci-
ences qui ont les Grandeurs pour Object: par J. P. A Paris, 1675, in quarto.

The author of this work, Jean Prestet,* delivers a short and easy method to
compare quantities, and to discover their proportions and relations to each other,
by characters of numbers and letters of the alphabet ; affirming to have here
demonstrated things in a geometrical order, and rendered the algebraical ana-
lysis much easier, and treated the same more fundamentally than has been done
hitherto.

By quantity he understands here not only the extension in length, breadth,
and depth, but whatsoever we conceive to be capable of more or less, and that
can be exactly measured, whether it be exactly known, or supposed such. He
considers, that though arithmetic be a science on which all others depend, yet
it is this algebra which serves to elucidate, extend, and perfect, as much as is
possible, arithmetic, and generally all the sciences that relate to the mathematics :
it being so general that it considers all quantities, and what it demonstrates
being capable to be applied, not only to numbers, lines, and figures, weights
and velocities, but also, to all such numbers, lines, velocities, and particular
quantities, as you can conceive in each species of quantities.

But it is not only the extent and universality of algebra for which he com-
mends it, but also the facility it affords to the mind of discovering the most
hidden truths.

♦ John Prestet, a priest of the oratory, was bom at Chalons-sur-Saone, in l658. He went to Paria
early in life, where having finished his studies, he was entertained by father Malbranche, who,
finding he had a genius for the sciences, taught him matliematics, in which his young pupil made so
rapid a progress, that at 17 years of age he published the first edition of his Elemens de JVIathema-
tiques. In the same year, \675, he entered the congregation of the oratory, and taught mathematics
with distinguished reputation, particularly at Angers and at Nantes. He died June 8, 1690, at Ma-
lines. His Elemens, above noticed, contain many curious problems. The best edition is that of
l689> in 2 volumes 4to.

RR 2

308 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

As to the order which our author has observed in those elements, they are
divided into two parts. The first, containing five books, explains and demon-
strates both the supputation with numbers, called arithmetic, and that of sym-
bols or letters, called algebra. The other, in four books, explains and treats
fundamentally of the analytical part, teaching to resolve questions, and to dis-
cover the general truths of the mathematics.

In the last four books he settles first the grounds of analysis. Next, after
giving some idea of the method of Diophantus, and of that of Vieta, he is par-
ticular in explaining the method of Descartes, which he esteems to be the most
general, fertile, and easiest of all. Yet seeing that this famous man has
not demonstrated, nor so much as explained, all the principles which he has
made use of, our author intimates, that the reader will not find in his writings
the same advantages for understanding his analysis, as may be had from these
elements. For^ after he has clearly explained and demonstrated all those prin-
ciples, he thence deduces in order not only all the discoveries made by Descartes^
but also other new and more useful ones.

II. De I'Art de Parler; a Paris, 1675, in l2mo.

To make the reader comprehend the true reasons of the principles of rhetoric,
the author begins with explaining how discourse comes to be formed; and
there being nothing better than nature herself to teach us the form that our
words ought to have for expressing our thoughts and the motions of our will,
he represents to himself a troop of men newly born, and that never have spoken
before. He considers what these men would do : he shows, that being soon
tired with expressing their mind to each other by gestures, they would quickly
find the advantage of speaking, and form a language to themselves; he inquires,
what form they would give to that language ; and in this inquiry he lays the
foundations of all languages, and shows the reason of all the rules prescribed by
grammarians, showing that this research is very useful to learn languages with
more ease, and to speak them with more exactness. And having made these
new men act their part, he declares what has been the true origin of tongues,
and that it is not hazard that has made men find out the use of speech; yet
showing that speech is subject to men's will, and that custom, or the common
consent of men, exercises an absolute power over words; whereupon he gives
rules to know which are the laws of custom, and to observe them after he has
instructed the reader which are the laws prescribed by reason.

III. The Manner of Raising, Ordering, and Improving Forest Trees; also
how to plant, make, and keep Woods, Walks, Avenues, Lawns, Hedges, &c.
with several Figures proper for Avenues and Walks to end in ; and convenient
Figures for Lawns ; also Rules and Tables, showing how the ingenious Planter

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SOQ

may measure superficial Figures; with Rules, how to divide Woods and Land;
and how to measure Timber and other Solid Bodies, either by Arithmetic or
Geometry, &c. By M. Cooke, in 4to.

IV and V. The French Gardener reprinted ; to which is annexed the English
Vineyard vindicated, and the Way of making and ordering Wines in France, &c.

The French Gardener, which gives proper instructions for the culture and
propagation of the best esculent plants, which are yet much wanting in England,
is reprinted in a third edition, illustrated with sculptures: To which is annexed,
The English Vineyard vindicated ; and the Way of making and ordering Wines
in France, in 8vo.

On the Effects of Thunder and Lightning on Sea Compasses ; also on the Gradual
Alteration of the Temperature of the Air in different Countries ; of an uncom-
mon Hygroscope\ and on the Scent of the Musk-quash, &c.', in a Letter from
Dublin. N° 127, p. 647.

Mr. Haward, a very credible person, tells me, that being once master of a
ship in a voyage to Barbadoes, in company with another commanded by one
Grofton, of New-England, in the latitude of Bermudas, they were suddenly
alarmed with a terrible clap of thunder, which broke Mr. Grofton's foremast,
tore his sails, and damaged his rigging. But that after the noise and confusion
were past, Mr. Haward, to whom the thunder had been more favourable, was
however no less surprised to see his companion's ship steer directly homeward
again. At first he thought that they had mistook their course, and that they
would soon perceive their error ; but seeing them persist in it, and being by
this time almost out of call, he tacked and stood after them ; and as soon as he
got near enough to be well understood, asked where they were going : but by
their answer, which imported that they had no other design than the prosecu-
tion of their former intended voyage, and by the sequel of their discourse, it at
last appeared that Mr. Grofton did indeed steer by the right point of his com-
pass, but that the card was turned round, the north and south points having
changed positions ; and though with his finger he brought the fleur-de-lys to
point directly north, it would immediately, as soon as at liberty, return to this
new unusual posture; and on examination he found every compass in the ship
altered in the same manner : which strange and sudden accident he could im-
pute to nothing else but the operation of the lightning or thunder just men-
tioned. He adds, that those compasses never to his knowledge recovered their
right positions again.
That in America, at least as far as the English plantations are extended, there

310 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

is an extraordinary alteration, as to temperature of the country, since the
Europeans began to settle there. Which change is generally attributed to the
cutting down of vast woods, with the clearing and cultivating of the country.
But that Ireland should also considerably alter without any such manifest cause
either invalidates that reason, or else evinces that quite different causes may
produce the same effect. For if it be true, as some compute, that this king-
dom was better inhabited and cultivated before the late civil wars, than at pre-
sent, viz. 1676, it should, according to the reasons alleged for the change
of temperature in America, be rather grown more intemperate, viz. for
want of cultivation : but the contrary is observable here, and almost every
one begins to take notice, that this country becomes every year more and
more temperate. Formerly it was not unusual to have frost and deep snows
of a fortnight or three weeks continuance; and that twice or thrice, some-
times oftner, in a winter; nay we have had great rivers and lakes frozen all
over ; whereas of late, especially these two or three years last past, we have
had scarcely any frost or snow at all. Neither can I impute this extraordinary
alteration to any fortuitous concourse of ordinary circumstances requisite to
the production of fair weather; because it is manifest, that it has proceeded
gradually, every year becoming more temperate than the preceding. Though
it be observed that frosty and snowy winters make early springs, and for
as little as we have had of either this winter, yet there has not within the
memory of any now living happened a forwarder spring in Ireland; since this
place could produce some store of ripe cherries in the midst of April. The
wind keeps for the most part here between the north-west and the south,
seldom at east, and yet less frequent at north or north-east, insomuch that many
here do not scruple to affirm, that for at least -^ of the year the wind is westerly;
and we have sometimes known passengers wait at Chester and Holyhead no less
than three months for a fair wind to come hither.

The hygroscope I make use of, I thus contrived. I took two pieces of deal
board, though poplar would do better, each about two feet long, and a foot or
more in breadth, as AB, fig. 6, pi. Q. These being well planed and shotten,
that their edges might meet even together, in that position they were fastened
at each end between two ledges of oak, CC, of two inches broad ; fixing both
boards in, as pannels are set in wainscoat. This done, supposing ^ of an inch
to be the utmost distance that these two boards would shrink asunder in the
driest weather, I took a thin piece of brass, D, two or three inches long, and -^
inch broad, and on one edge towards the end I measured 4- of an inch, dd, this
I divided into five equal parts, and with a small file made them into so many
fine teeth, like those of a watch- wheel. This piece of brass I placed flat, across

TOI.. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 311

the juncture of the two boards, nailing one end, by means of two small holes
bb, to the board A only, leaving the other end, which is the toothed one, free,
and reaching to a competent distance over the board B, to which it had no co-
herence. Next I made a pinion e, consisting of as many teeth as the piece of
brass had, on the end of a piece of thick iron wire: the axis F, with its pinion e,
I so fastened to the other board B, by means of the small arm E, and so adapt-
ed to the teeth of the brass plate, that when the boards shrink asunder, the
brass being drawn a little away, must needs turn this axis, by means of its
toothed pinion e, more or less; and thus, if ever it happens that the boards
gape but a quarter of an inch asunder, this axis will have made one entire revo-
lution : wherefore putting a long index GG on the extremity of this axis, and
making a circle round it with the usual graduations, numbered from any point
at pleasure, the motion of the index backward or forward, shows the degrees of
the drought or moisture of the air. Now this axis may be made to pass through a
round plate of wood or metal, that hides the contrivance, all but the hand and
figures, as in a clock or watch. It is to be noted, that the boards must be
fastened to the ledges, only at the outer edges, as at aaaa, that they may have
the more liberty of swelling and shrinking asunder. The commodiousness of
this kind of hygroscope in comparison of those made of wild oat-beards, may
best be observed by those that may try them both.

I have here also sent you the figure of an admirable instance of nature's
luxuriancy, in her contrivance even of insects. Fig. 7^ ph 9> is a kind of large
flying beetle, of a dark shining brown, with a huge pair of horns, in propor-
tion to the body, shaped and branched exactly like a stag's or hart's, from which
last it is denominated, in Virginia and New-England, the flying hart. It is of
the shape and size of the figures above referred to. It flies high and swift, and
rests most commonly on branches or trunks of standing trees ; where, as eoon as
it has taken up its station, it begins with a shrill chirping voice, which it raises
by little and little till it makes the whole woods ring again; and then lessens
gradually, till it ceases with a kind of silent murmur, as if the little creature had
rung itself asleep : then it flies to some other place, and begins the same tune
again. The horns are of a shining hard substance, and the tips of them touch
the same plane with the belly.

Though the author in N° 27, of your Transactions, seems inclinable to be-
lieve, that it is peculiar to the Thames water alone, upon stinking, to be re-
coverable or potable again ; I can aflirm upon my own knowledge, that water
taken aboard at New London in New-England, though in eight days time it
stunk intolerably, yet when we came to Virginia, it recovered so perfectly, that
I made no scruple to drink of it in harbour, even when we had fresh water

312 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. fANNO l676v

newly brought from shore, nor could I easily perceive it had any relics of its
late corruption.

That the testicles of the animal called musk-quash do smell strong of musk,
as Mr. Josselin says, in N° 85, is most certain : for, I have known some of
them kept a long time in a pocket, till they were become hard and black, and
yet smelt as strongly as at first ; which, in my opinion, was nothing inferior to
the scent of that which is commonly sold for musk in the shops.

On the Texture of Trees', and on Animals in IVlne, In a Letter from Mr.
Leewenhoeck, Delft, April 21, 1676. N° 127, p. 653.

M. Huygens was pleased to show me the comparative anatomy of the trunks
of plants, written by Dr. Grew; and told me that he had very ingeniously and
learnedly discoursed on that subject; though I, by reason of my unskilfulness
in the English tongue, could have little more than the pleasure of viewing the
elegant cuts.

I have formerly written to you, that I had discovered in several trees two
sorts of vessels^ or pores, and conceived, that the matter which serves for the
increase of trees was in the greater vessels sent upwards,^ and that some small
particles again descended in the smaller vessels, to the roots, whereby was
maintained a circulation^ also in trees.

But not finding by the figures of Dr. Grew, that he has discovered those two
sorts of vessels in the woody part,* I here take the liberty of sending you the
eighth part of the transverse slice of an ash-sprig of a year's growth ; and now
acquaint you, that besides those two sorts of vessels in wood, I have discovered
a third sort ; these two going directly upward, and this third issuing out of the

* These two sorts of vessels are described by Dr. Grew in his first and general Anatomy of Plants,
in his Anatomy of Roots, and in his Anatomy of Tninks. — "^ The chief use to which Dr. Grew, in
his said three books, assigns these vessels in all parts, is not the conveyance of sap but of air. And
herein Signor Malpighi agrees with himj see his Anatome Plantarum de part. Caulem componentibus.
Yet in some few plants, and at some certain times of the year only. Dr. Grew shows, that the said
air-vessels do contain an aqueous sap, and how it comes to pass ; see his Anatomy of Trunks, p. 2,
ch. 1, and pag. 26. — ^^ Dr, Grew, in his aforesaid first book, speaks conjecturally of a circulation, not
in the trunk but in the root only j and that not by vessels of a diff'erent but the same species, viz. sap-
vessels, some of them running through the pith, by which chiefly tlie sap may ascend, and some
through the bark, by which part of tlie sap may descend j see ch. 2, of that book. — * These two sorts
of vessels are, as was said, distinctly and largely described by Dr. Grew, particularly in his Anatomy of
Trunks, p. 22 to 30. And tlie explications of all the figures plainly distinguish the air-vessels from tlie
sap-vessels. The pores or mouths of which sap-vessels are from their incomparable smallness repre-
sented only in fig. 18, where they are very much wider than ordinary j see also p. 25, of that book.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 313

middle or the pith, going horizontally' to the circumference: so that the whole
body of wood consists of nothing but small hollow pipes.**

These pipes, out of which the firm wood is made up, are in many places as
clear as crystal,^ and in other places they seem to consist in part, of small
globules. ** The great vessels observed and expressed by Dr. Grew, I saw very
manifestly to consist of small globules. These great vessels are generally
furnished with small membranes, which being cut through, may be seen to lie
obliquely in the vessels; and these I conceive to be valves.®

'° These three sorts of vessels then I have observed not only in ash wood,
but also in elm, oak, willow, shumach, lime tree, apple, pear, plum, walnut,
hasel tree, &c. And all the vessels which Dr. Grew has represented in ash and
other wood, though they differ from each other in size, yet under favour, I
ta*e them to be of one sort." I have also made it out, as well as I could, how

— * These parts, which Mr. Leewenhoeck calls a third sort of vessels. Dr. Grew calls the insertions,
and has largely described tliem in all his three books, particularly in his Anatomy of Trunks, p. 20,
21, 22; and has clearly expressed them in almost every figure of that book, sc. by white diametrical
lines, more agreeable, as he conceives, to nature, which Mr. Leewenhoeck (fig. 10, GH) has ex-
pressed by black. These parts he demonstrates, especially from herby plants, to be of the very same
substance with the pith. Wherein Signer Malpighi also most clearly agrees with him j see his Idea
Anat. Plant, p. 3, 1. 3. Of tliese insertions it is by Dr. Grew further remarked, that they consist of
a number of most exquisitely small fibres; which in all less woody, softer, and younger plants, are
woven up together into extreme small bladders, which bladders Signor Malpighi has likewise ob-
served, caUing them utriculous ; see the forecited place; but not their being composed of such fibres.
These bladders being in cleaving a branch many of them cut open. Dr. Grew tells me, he conceives
may be taken by Mr. Leewenhoeck for the mouths of vessels. But in most hard woods the bladders,
he says, are scarcely to be seen, the said fibres being so closely couched and drawn up together, as to
lie rather after the manner of the vessels in the liver, testicles, glands, and other viscera in animals.
— ^ Dr, Grew has formerly gathered on probable grounds, that not only the wood, but the whole of a
plant consists of pipes; see his Anatomy of Roots, part 2, ch. ult, and Anatomy of trunks, p. 18, and
p. 34, 35; see also the latter paragraph of note 5. — ' The same Dr. Grew has said in his Anatomy of
Roots, p. — 114. — '^ Dr. Grew has given a further and more particular description of the structure of
these vessels; Anatomy of Roots, p. 89, and Anatomy of Trunks, p. 30, and fig. 24. Which, if
well minded, will give the reason why they seem, especially in vines, oak, and some other plants,
to consist of globules, — ^ Of the same appearance of pithy valves. Dr. Grew makes mention in his
first book of the Anatomy of Plants, p. 71, at the beguining. But that in the sap- vessels there are
no valves, he proves by divers arguments; see his Anatomy of Trunks, p. 45, 46. He also says,
that he has made some experiments, proving that there are no valves neither in the air-vessels. —
'"These three general parts Dr. Grew has described, and represented in several figures, showing the
different texture of so many several sorts of wood; see Anatomy of Trunks, p. 20 to 30, compared
widi the figures and tlie explication of the same. But for what he says of one of the said three parts,
which Mr. Leewenhoeck calls a third sort of vessels; see the note 5. — " Dr. Grew has botli de-
scribed, and by his figures (Anatomy of Trunks) represented, two sorts of vessels in the wood of ash,
and divers other trees. But all these vessels, whose pores or mouths are represented, are indeed of
©ne sort only, excepting in tlie ISth figvire; which made Mr. Leewenhoeck (for want of skill inthe
VOL. II. S S

314 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I676.

trees^and other plants grow in height and thickness ; of which ^^ I doubt not but
Dr. Grew has written so learnedly that I shall not need to notice it here.

In fig. 8;, pi. 9, AB is one of the great pores or vessels of an ash twig of
one year's growth, cut lengthwise through the middle of the pores, which ves-
sels consist of tranparent globules/^ wherein might be plainly seen the small
oblique membranes called valves/* which membranes do not lie with their
upper part extended one and the same way, but so as that two sides of them,
with their upper end, reach towards one another, as CC and DD. And if we
suppose that the hollowness of these greater vessels is as large as a hair, we
may then very well say, that the hollowness of the small ones^^ is at least 25
times smaller than such a hair. That these vessels consist of globules, ^^ I have
not only seen in ash- wood, but also in walnut, hasel, apple, pear, and plum,
&c. trees.

In fig. 9, AB exhibits some of the small vessels that make up the firm
wood,^'' cut off close to the bark lengthwise. Of these vessels ^^ there lie 8,
3 0, or 12 together, as at C and D, in the manner of a weaver's shuttle, lying
in some places irregularly, the one close by the other, and in other places
somewhat more dispersed.

In fig. 10, ABCD is the bark^^ of the twig, which is only represented with
bare lines, because that now the plant is growing, by which the bark is changed
from what it is in winter. AHHDEGF is the eighth part of the wood of
an ash twig one year old, cut transversely, not made up wholly of firm or close
parts, but partly too of large vessels,^" which yet differ much among themselves
in size, and which are seldom or never perfectly round, standing also near the

English tongue to have recourse to the explications) to conceive there were no other represented at
all. And for fig. 18, that being but one, which the author thought sufficient for example's sake,
amongst so many more figures, Mr. Leewenhoeck it seems overlooked it ; see the latter end of the
note 4. — '^ The causes of which are assigned and explained in Dr. Grew's Anatomy of Trunks, part
2, ch, 5. And of a great many more particulars throughout the whole economy of vegetation in all
the aforesaid three books — '^ See the note 8. — '* See the note 9- — '* Of the size of these valves j see
Dr, Grew's computation. Anatomy of Trunks, p, 18, 19.—'^ See the note 8. — " Dr. Grew's de-
scription of this 5 see Anatomy of Trunks, p. 22 to 26. — '^ See the note 5. — ^^ See Dr. Grew's de-
scription and representation of the bark in his Anatomy of Trunks. And of tliis very bark, fig, 15,
with tlie explication. And it is fiirther to be noted, that the same author in his Anatomy of Trunks,
informs us that there are two sorts of vessels visibly distinct in tlie bark of most, if not of all, sorts of
trees, and other plants, as well as in the wood. Wherein Signor Malpighi also agrees with him, at
least that they are to be found in many trees of two distinct species; see his Idea, p. 2, towards the
end. And Dr. Grew also both observes and shows three distinct species of vessels, even in the bark
of some plants; see Anatomy of Trunks, p. 14 to 17, and fig. 19, 20, 21. — ^ Which Dr, Grew
•alls the air-vessels, (Malpighi Fistulas spirales) and describes. Anatomy of Roots and Trunks, p. 26

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 315

pith in some places irregular by each other; and the rest of the wood being an
infinite number of little vessels"^' or pores. GH are vessels ^^ having their ori-
gin from the pith, and terminating in the circumference of the *woody part,
viz. when the tree is not growing. These vessels may not always be seen, in a
transverse cut, to have *their rise out of G and to end in the circumference H,^
because that in the dissection the knife does not throughout keep just the mid-
dle of the body that takes hold of these vessels, from the place of the very be-
ginning of them, but in one place, as about C in fig. 9, it will cut through
with its sharp point, and in another place the same will pass with its middle, as
atD, where it is thickest; and thus the eye sees these vessels to have their be-
ginning out of G, and run between G and H into nothing, and again, that the
same seem to have their beginning in the middle, and become still broader and
broader till they end in H.

II are the very small vessels,^^ that are accounted to be the firm wood. EK
F is the pith of the twig, which likewise cannot be imitated by art, as it con-
sists of vesicles or bladders^^ that have six, seven, or eight sides, and lie most
curiously with their sides to each other. In some of which bladders I have
seen small darkish globules ;^^ and if I had not in some other wood more plainly
discovered these globules, it would have been impossible to have observed them
in this pith by reason of their extraordinary smallness.^^

I beg you, sir, to communicate this to Dr. Grew, with my service to him,
and to inquire of him, whether he has seen, as well as I, that the great vessels
or pores, which are expressed in his figures, do not consist of globules, as in
fig. 8, AB ; as also that in the same do lie oblique membranes or films, which
I call valves, as CC, DD; again, whether the particles of the wood, which en-
compass the great vessels, be not all of them very small vessels or pores; lastly,
whether the strokes which in fig. 10 are denoted by GH coming out of the
pith, and running horizontally to the circumference, do not also all of them

to 30. — ^^ Which Dr. Grew calls tlie true wood, or old sap-vessels, described in his Anatomy of
Trunks, p. 22 to 26. — ^* See the note 5. — ^^ See the same thing observed in Dr. Grew's general Ana-
tomy of Plants. And an example of the same in the wood of Sumach, Anatomy of Trunks, fig.
20} that being of a branch of the first year's growth, as is Mr, Leewenhoeck's, wherein it is much
more observable than in older branches, I'he cause of which is that which Dr. Grew calls the braces,
and Signor Malpighi, the superequitations of the vessels. — ^4 -jj^g same with those mentioned note 21.
— "^^ See Dr. Grew's description of the pith, and therein of these bladders. Anatomy of Roots, part
2, and Anatomy of Trunks, part 2, ch. 4. — '® See the same ch. p. 34. — " See the same ch. 32,
33. Note, that tliese bladders, whereof the pith consists, Signor Malpighi also observes, but not the
fibres, of which fibres (most admirably woven up together) Dr. Grew has discovered the said bladders
to be composed) see the same ch. p. 35. — Orig,

S S 2

31(5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676,

consist of vessels or pores ; as these also which in fig. 9 are cut off along the
wood, and run through the said vessels, as CD.

I have now some French wine of the growth of the year past, which has a
very delicate taste. The vessel wherein this wine is, was very good and sweet
when the wine was put in, and a coarse linen cloth dipped in melted brimstone
and kindled had been hung over the vessel before it was filled. In this wine I
have often observed small living creatures, shaped like little eels, as appear in
AB, fig. 11, having on their forehead a round convexity like a crescent without
having any thing else that I could see on the forepart of their body, and that
part looked no otherwise than crystal ; but towards its middle it was made up of
nothing but globules, which I could very plainly discern ; and the hinderpart of
the body of these little animals appeared as clear and transparent as the forepart,
and running to a very sharp tail.

Eclipse of the Sun, u4nno 1675, June 23, in the Morningy New Style. Observed
at Dantzic. By Hevelim. N*' 127, p. 660.

Calcul. by the Rudolphine Table.

h. m. s.

Beginning at Dantzic . . 4 31 42

Greatest obscuration . . 5 28 20

End of the eclipse .... 6 24 58

The duration 1 53 16

The quantity 6° 5'

Observed at Dantzic.

h. m. s.

4 44 O

5 39 O

6 33 30
1 50 O
6° 42'

Differences,
min.
12
11

9
3

37

M. Hevelius also communicated his observation of the figure of Saturn, as it
appeared to him in August 1675, as exhibited in fig. 1, pi. 10.

Mr. Flamsteed's Letter, concerning his Observations, and those of Mr. Townly,
and Mr. Halton, of the late Eclipse of the Sun, June 1, 1676. N° 127^
p. 662.

In conducting these observations, I w^as assisted by my friend Mr. Halley.
We had prepared two tubes; the one I964- inches long, having one of Town-
ly's micrometers, with which I took the measures of the first eight phases.
The other was only 103-i- inches long, with my own micrometer, and with
which Mr. Halley took the observations. But in the last two observations, with
this tube, (the micrometer of which is fitter for this use than the other) I took
the distance of the azimuths falling by the sun's lucid limb and the nearest cusp of

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

317

TOL. XI.]

the eclipse, while Mr. Halley in the mean time measured the lucid parts and the
distance of the cusps, with the longer tube. A little before the beginning came
Lord Viscount Brouncker, president of the Royal Society, who proved by his
own judgment the measure of the sun's diameter, taken with the longer tube.
At 7^ 45"" the sun first appeared through the clouds. The observations were a9
below. See the type at fig. 1, pi. 10.^

O

1

2
3

4
5

6

7
8

9

10

Time by the

Pend. Clock.

h.

m. s.

7

50 0

7

54 50

7

58 24

8

4 12

8

13 40

8

J 8 37

8

21 6

8

28 1

8

29 1

8

35 12

8

40 20

10

2 0

10

4 0 1

Corrected
Time.

m. s.
49 o

53 50

57 24
3 12

12 40
8 17 37
8 20 6

8 27 1

8 28 1

8 34 12

8 39 20

10 1 O

10 3 0

No eclipse yet. Clouds,
The sun emerging from the clouds, the right
side appeared eclipsed.
2040 =10' 10

Observed with the longpr
Telescope.

Observed with the
Shorter.

IC.
IC. .
IC.
PL.

, 2773 = 13 56
. 3580= 17 52
. 4975 = 24 50

Sun's dia. 6360 = 31 43

PL 4565 = 21 46

PL 4478 = 22 18

IC 4417 =22 0

The sun then hid by clouds, till

The limb seen through the clouds, appeared

free from the eclipse.
Shining clearer, nothing of the limb was wanting

PL.. 3198 = 26' 18^'
IC.. 2334 =19 13
PL . . 2989 = 24 35
3850 = 31 40
PL.. 2888 =23 57

AZ.. 2310= 19 O
AZ.. 2070= 17 2

^

318

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

[anno 1676.'

The same Eclipse observed hy Mr. Richard Townly, at Townly, in Lat. 53° 44',
and Long. Q min. West of the Meridian of London, page 664. See Fig. 3,
PL 10. N'^ 127, p. 663.

Time by the
Pend. Clock.

Corrected by a
merid. line.

Measures of the Phases.

h, m. s.

h. m. s.

8 6 45

8 8 27

AB 1190=16' 9//

or . 1 109 = 14 50

8 110

8 12 42

CD 1935 = 26 15

18 0

19 42

AB. . .. 1405 = 19 4

21 0

22 42

CD.... 1805 =24 30

26 14

27 56

AB 1504 = 20 47

34 0

35 42

CD 1711 = 23 13

42 15

43 57

AB.... 1551 =21 3 accurately.

46 30

48 12

CD 1720 = 23 20

or. . 1702 = 23 15

51 45

53 27

AB .... 1 553 = 21 4 accurately.

9 0 0

9 1 42

CD 1809 = 24 33

9 12 34

9 14 16

AB 1357 =• 18 25

9 30 55

9 32 37

AB 872 =11 50

9 41 15

9 42 57

Eclipse ended as near as could be perceived.

The place of the exit was so near the vertex, that I could not well determine
which way it inclined from it. Though at 9 h. 29m. by the clock, the cusps
appeared parallel to the horizon. — At 9h. 10m. the sun's diameter measured
2,334. — ^When the sun came to the meridian, by a long meridian line, the
clock was found too slow by Im. 42s. But by a large equinoctial dial, by
which I could distinguish to half minutes or less, the clock was too slow all this
morning only 45 seconds. Yet I rather trust to the former correction by the
meridian line, than by the sun-dial.

TOL. XI.J

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

31^

The same Eclipse observed by Mr. Immanuel Halton, at If^ngjield, about 10
miles North of Derby , in Lat. 53* 8'.
h.

h. m.

At 7 50 Nothing over the sun.

7 50-i- The beginning exactly.

7 52 The defect observable.

9 O The digits 34-.

m.

11 Digits 3-rV.
21 Digits 2-fiA-
47-1- Not finished, but the end
just approaching.
Page 664.

The same observed at Paris, by M. Cassini.
When the sun emerged out of the clouds, approaching to an altitude of 48*,
I directed my quadrant to him, and kept it fixed at that altitude. From the
time that the upper limb of the sun a touched the horizontal thread cd, fig. 4,
pi. 10, in the focus of the telescope, to the coming of the centre b, there
passed 104 seconds == ab or br. From the passage of the centre b, to that of
the upper limb of the moon o, were 11 sec. =: bs. From the transit of the
centre bj to that of the upper western horn e, were 25-i- sec. =. eh. From the
transit of the centre Z?, to that of the lower eastern horn i, were 93 sec. = ik.
Hence is determined the line of the horns ie, (independent of the variation),
and its inclination to the horizon Ik ; also the point of concourse p of a. tangent
to the moon with the secant iep, and the tangent itself po, being a mean pro-
portional between j& z and /> e. Also the angles noe, toi; and hence the angle
ioe, with the triangle ioe, inscribed in the circumference of the moon. — From
these and other astronomical principles I have deduced, that the beginning of
the eclipse at Paris ought to be at 7h. 55m. and the end at about lOh. 12m.

The same Eclipse observed by M. Hevelius, at Dantzic.

Beginning

Greatest obscuration . .

The end

Duration

Sun's semidiameter . . .
Moon's semidiameter. .

Ditto

Ditto

Digits eclipsed

Times by the

Rudolphine

Tables.

Observed Times
Corrected.

Measures.

h. m. s.

h. m. s.

9 22 26

9 22 0

10 17 57

10 31 0

11 13 26

11 39 40

1 50 58

2 17 40

15' C^'

10 0 0

13 53

10 24 0

14 0

11 0 0

14 50

4° 21' 30'''

4° 22' 0'^

320 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

An Extract of a Jjetter of the learned Dr. Matthias Mangold, of Basil con-
cerning a Mathematico Historical Table, designed in tliat University; together
with a Description of the import of the same, N° 127, P- ^^7-

This idea of a mathematico historical table is by M. P. Megerlin, professor of
mathematics at Basil, and which he proposes to regulate according to the revo-
lutions of the great conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter. But it contains nothing
worth extracting here.

An Account of some Books. N° 127, p. 669.

I. Experiments, Notes, &c. about the Mechanical Origin of divers particular
Qualities; among which is inserted a Discourse of the Imperfection of the Che-
mist's Doctrine of Qualities; together with some Keflections upon the Hypo
thesis of Alcali and Acidum. By the Hon. Robert Boyle, Fellow of the Royal
Society. London, 1675, in 8vo.

These tracts are a fresh proof both of the noble author's constancy in his
kindness to experimental philosophy, and of his sagacity in giving a more in-
telligible account of philosophical subjects, than is commonly received in
schools. The matters here presented, by way of specimen, comprehend in a
small compass a great variety; there being scarcely any one sort of qualities, of
which there is not an instance given in this small volume; since experiments
and considerations are there delivered about heat and cold, which are the chief
of the first four qualities; about tastes and odours, which are of those that,
being immediate objects of sense, are usually called sensible qualities; about
volatility and fixity, corrosiveness and corrosibility, which, as they are found in
bodies purely natural, are referrible to those qualities, that many physical writers
call second qualities, and which yet as they may be produced and destroyed by
the chemist's art, may be styled chemical qualities and the spagyrical ways of
introducing or expelling them may be referred to chemical operations, of which
here is given a more ample specimen in the mechanical account of chemical
precipitations. To all which are added some notes about magnetism and elec-
tricity, which are known to belong to the tribe called occult qualities, by dark
philosophers.

Concerning these particular qualities the present design of the excellent au-
thor is chiefly, to give an intelligent and historical account of the possible me-
chanical origin of them ; though his secondary end is to become a benefactor to
the history of qualities, by providing materials for himself or others. And he
endeavours to prove that all the qualities of bodies may be derived from and ex-
plained by mechanical principles.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 321

II. Th. Bartholinus de Peregrinatione Medica, &c. Hafniae, 1674, in fol.
A treatise sliowing tiie advantages of foreign travel to the physician and na-
turalist.

III. Georgii Hieronymi Velschii Hecatosteae II. Observationum Physico
Medicarum. Augustas Vindelicorum. 1675.

IV. Joh. Nicolai Pechlinii,* M.D, &c. de Aeriset Alimenti Defectu, et Vita
sub Aquis Meditatio. Kiloni, 1676, in 8vo.

This author having received out of Sweden a very extraordinary relation about
a man drowned under ice, and revived after 16 hours time, takes thence occa-
sion to discourse, in this tract in general, how far air and aliment are necessary
to the life of vegetables and animals. He begins with vegetables, and examines
the necessity of air and water to preserve them alive. Where he observes the
obscure degree of life in bulbs and roots during winter; as also the cause of the
distinction of life in annual and perennial plants; with the hasty growth of some
vegetables. Proceeding to animals, he inquires first into the life of insects,
and their apparent death in winter, which he esteems not to be without a re-
mainder of the principle of life, as also into the changes of some of them into
aurelias and butterflies. Here he takes notice, after Malpighi, of those ex-
ceedingly minute tubes in silk-worms, through which the air passes and carries
on the motion of the liquor in their annular fibres. Next he explains, how the
same alteration of life and death holds in birds, particularly in swallows and
storks, that is found in insects; and takes notice of the swallows immerging
themselves under the water on the sides of the Baltic sea, and remaining there
all winter, and reviving again in the spring, flying about upon their being taken
up in winter, and brought into a hot stove.

Thirdly, he attempts to show, why fishes cannot live long in the open air,
partly because the current of the air is more impetuous than the nature of fishes
will bear; partly, because the motion of the air carries off that viscous moisture
which overlays their outside: partly also because the motion of their fins, by
which the blood is made to circulate in them, having no place in the free air,
the blood must needs stagnate in that element ; though some fishes, especially

* This expert anatomist and distinguished medical writer was bom at Leyden, in l6^6. He held
the professorship of physic at Kiel, and was chief physician to the Duke of Holstein. He died in
17065 aged 60. In his treatise de Purgant. Med. Facultatibus, (which contains many excellent ob-
servations) he has described more accurately than had been done by preceding authors, tlie villous
coat of the intestines, the intestinal glands, &c. This, with his Dissertations de Fabrica et Us
Cordis, and his Observat, Physico-Medicarum Libri III. are among his most valuable works. Be-
sides the above-mentioned tract, he also wrote de Habituet Colore iEthiopum ; and he is moreover sup-
posed to have been the author of a satirical piece against Sylvius and de Graaf, entitled Metamor-
phosis iEsculapii et Apoilinis Pancreatici.

VOL. II. T T

322 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67Q,

those that emit, and are covered with a very viscous moisture, as tenches,
skates, eels, will live longer in air than others. Here he notes that fish under
conglaciated water die not so much for want of air, as from the plenty of the
vapours that issue from the warm bottom.* To all which he adds the reason,
why oysters, lobsters, shrimps, and the like, survive longer in the air than other
inhabitants of the water. Concluding this chapter with an account why the
serpentine kind grow torpid of themselves in winter, and after revival cast their
skins every year.

Fourthly, he discourses of some quadrupeds hiding themselves in caves dur-
ing winter, as bears, hedge-hogs, &c. observing that whatever the tradition be
of bears sleeping all winter, and sucking now and then their paws, it will be
found, that they sleep soundly at first for a good while, but afterwards awaken
and live upon some provision they have stored up for that dead time of winter:
and as to the oleous moisture sweating out of the tubulous channels of their
feet, that that has no other use than to soften and smooth, by being licked up,
the sinuosities of the stomach and bowels that had by long abstinence been much
corrugated, and so prepare them again for the new food to be taken in by the
animal.

Fifthly, he inquires how far it is possible for men to live without air. Where
he relates first an example, upon his own knowledge, of a woman strangled,
who was recovered to life by a good dose of spirit of sal ammoniac ; adding,
that doubtless many such might be recovered if the like brisk spirits, together
with bleeding and friction, were employed. Then he inquires into the possibi-
lity of the living of men under water; where he begins with the consideration
of the difference there is between the life of embryos and urinators or divers,
representing that the former need no other air than what is conveyed into them
by the mother's rarified blood, being imbued with an aerial ferment ; but that
the latter, the divers, that is, such as use no art, are of that temper and consti-
tution, that their blood being colder than that of others, and there arising but
a slender effervescence of the blood in the heart, there is no quick circulation,
nor a necessity of expiring any great plenty of sharp and offensive fumes; which
kind of blood the author compares to that of fishes, or rather to that of am-
phibious animals, as frogs, tortoises, &c.-{-

On this occasion he relates that extraordinary example of a Swedish gardener,-
lately alive, who some years ago endeavouring to help another who was fallen

* In shallow waters, may not the freezing cold itself prove fatal to them ?

t Even on the supposition that the foramen ovale remains unclosed in the case of some divers, yet
can the fact of their continuing for some minutes under water, without a supply of fresh air, only be
referred to the power of habit.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 323

into the water under the ice, fell into it himself to tlie depth of 1 8 Swedish ells;
where afterwards he was found standing upright with his feet on the ground,
and whence they drew him up, after he had remained there for the space of l6
hours, wrapping him about close with linen and woollen clothes, to keep the air
from too suddenly rushing upon him, and then laying him in some warm place,
and rubbing and rolling him, and at length giving him some very spirituous
liquor to drink; by all which he was at length restored to life, and brought to
the queen-mother of Sweden, who gave him a yearly pension, and showed him
as a prodigy to divers persons of quality ; the same thing being also confirmed by
the famous Dr. Langelot, who himself received the relation in Sweden so well
attested, that nothing, says our author, can be required more to prove a his-
torical truth. To which narrative are here subjoined some others, so much
more prodigious, that we want confidence to insert them here.

To solve these strange phaenomena. Dr. Pechlinius pretends, that there re-
mained in these persons some, though very languid and obscure, motion of the
blood and spirits, and that that motion was reduced ad interiora, and there con-
fined to a small compass, without circulation. And that it may not be thought
impossible that the blood should get into the lungs destitute of motion, our
author alleges the life of urinators, in whom it is manifest that there is a mo-
tion of the heart and blood, and yet the respiration suppressed, &c.*

Description of a Hydraulic Engine, from the Register of the Royal Academy of
Sciences of Paris, and inserted in the Journal des Sgavans, l675. N° 128,
p. 679.

The effect of this engine is to throw out water to a great distance by the
compression of the water forced out through a tube, which turning every way,
is thereby fitted to direct the jet of water to the places where the fire is to be
extinguished. What is most peculiar in this engine is, that the course of the
water, issuing out of the tube that darts it, is continued, not being interrupted,
even when the compression of the pump's sucker ceases to act.

The engine is a chest of copper. A, (fig. 6, pi. 10), transportable by means
of wooden bars like a sedan or chair. This chest is pierced above with many
holes BB, holding within it the body of a pump EFM, whose sucker DE is
raised and lowered by two levers CC, having each of them two arms, so as to
be worked by the hands of a man. Each lever is pierced in the middle by a

* The experiments of modern physiologists have placed it beyond a doubt, that in the case of
drowning, man and otlier brea tiling animals are destroyed by the suppression of respiration; in con-
sequence of which the blood ceases to be furnished with a principle (oxygen) essential to life,

T T 3

324 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

mortise aa, in which an iron nail, which passes through the handle of the
sucker, turns round when that sucker is raised or lowered. Near the body of
the pump is a copper vessel IHK, communicating with it by the tube G, and
having another tube KNL, which at N may be turned every way.

To make this engine play, water is poured upon the chest to enter in at the
holes that are in the cover. This water is drawn into the body of the pump at
the hole F, when the sucker is raised ; and when the same is let down, the valve
of the hole F shuts, and forces the water through the hole M into the tube G,
of which the valve H being lifted up, the water enters into the pot, and filling
the- bottom, it enters through the hole K into the tube KNL, in such a man-
ner, that when the water is higher than the tube KNL, and the hole of the
tube G is shut by the valve H, the air inclosed in the vessel has no vent; and
when you continue to make the water enter into the vessel by the tube G, which
is much thicker than the aperture of the end L, at which it issues, it must
needs be, that the surplus of the water that enters into the vessel, and exceeds
that which at the same time issues through the small end of the jet, compresses
the air in the vessel : by which means, whilst the sucker is raised again to let
new water enter into the body of the pump, the air compressed in the vessel
drives the surplus of the water by the force of its spring, in the mean time that
a new depression of the sucker makes new water to enter, and causes also a new
compression of air. And thus the stream of the water, which issues by the
jet, is made to play continually.

Extract of a Letter from S'lgnor Cassini to the Author of the Journal des Sfavans,
containing some Advertisements to Astronomers about the Configurations of the
Satellites of Jupiter, for the Years 1676 and 1677. N° 128, p. dSl.

The configurations of Jupiter's satellites, which are observed this year 1676,
and which may be observed the next year, are of so great importance to the
verifying of their hypothesis, that Signor Cassini thought fit to advise astro-
nomers, not to let this occasion slip, which presents itself only twice in 12
years, of observing them with care and attention. For, by comparing the ob-
servations of this year with those of the next, they will find an apparent inver-
sion of the whole system of the satellites, which will happen towards the end
of March next, according to his particular hypothesis, which he proposes to
verify by comparing these observations with those of Galilasus, Marius, and
Hodierna, who undertook to give tables of their motions.

Since the satellites have the centre of Jupiter for the centre of their particular
motions, and that the circles they describe are not directly opposite to the earth
nor the sun, there is always a part of each of those circles inferior to Jupiter,

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 325

and another superior to him ; and this being compared to the centre of the ap-
parent disk of Jupiter, is sometimes turned to the south, sometimes to the
north, by a perpetual change of inclination to our visual ray. Galilaeo be-
lieved formerly, that he had found rules for this phenomenon, or perpetual
change of inclination, by supposing the planes of those circles to be always
parallel to the ecliptic ; for by Galilaeo's supposition, the satellites in the
superior part of their circles should have their latitude, in respect of the
centre of Jupiter, always contrary to the latitude of Jupiter in respect of
the ecliptic; which the observations of this year contradict, forasmuch as
the satellites, being in the superior part of their circles, near to their con-
junction with Jupiter, have also the meridional latitude in respect of his centre,
as Jupiter has since the month of March, in respect of the ecliptic— The con-
trariety of latitude between one satellite being in the superior part of his circle,
and another being in the inferior part of his, is more sensible in the encounter
of a direct, which is always superior, with a retrograde, which is always inferior,
and particularly near to Jupiter.

Signor Cassini foresees, 1. That at the end of March next, the satellites
will no more have any latitude in respect of Jupiter's centre, and that they will
appear in a straight line in all their configurations between themselves and with
Jupiter, and will eclipse each other: which, according to Galilaeo, should have
come to pass ever since the first months of this present year, when Jupiter
passed from the north- side to that of the south, and not the next year, when
Jupiter will have a great southern latitude. 2. That the straight line of the
satellites will be inclined to the ecliptic, contrary to the Galilasan hypothesis.

3. That this disposition of the satellites, in a straight line in their encounter,
will last but a few days, though Galilaeo assures us that it lasts many months.

4. That the next summer the situation of the circles of the satellites will be
found inverted, in respect of that which they have now ; for, the superior
semicircles which at present are turned to the south, will then be turned to
the north : which will overthrow the hypotheses of Marius and Hodierna,
who suppose them always turned the same way.

These observations will serve to verify the nodes of the orbs of the satellites
with the orbit of Jupiter, and the obliquity of the one to the others ; which are
the two keys to the theory of the satellites. Signor Cassini settles these nodes
towards the 13th degree of Leo and Aquarius; but Galilaeo supposed them
always to be with the nodes of Jupiter, which are towards the beginning of
Cancer and Capricorn. He finds the obliquity of their circles to the orbit of
Jupiter almost double to the obliquity of this orbit to the ecliptic ; whereas
Galilaeo supposes it equal. — Lastly, Cassini retracts the motion, which he in-

326 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I676.

troduced to the nodes of the satelHtes, such as is described at the end of his
first tables, only to reconcile the observations of Galilaeo with his, and he
acknowledges that the obliquity of their circles is permanent.

The goodness of Signor Cassini's system, and the imperfection of the hypo-
theses of Galilaeo are demonstrated by the eclipses of the satellites, which happen
conformable to the calculus of Cassini, and differ by days and hours from the
calculus and predictions made upon the hypotheses of Galilaeo : besides that
there should happen a great many which do not happen according to the system
of Cassini. E. g. according to the hypothesis of Galilaeo, the fourth of the
satellites should have more than 90 eclipses in a year, of the duration of three
or four hours; but according to the system of Cassini, the same satellite will be
three or four years without suffering any eclipse. Which proceeds from nothing
but the false situation of the orbs supposed by Galilaeo ; as the great difference
of the time of the eclipses that happen depends on this, that neither Galilaeo
nor the other astronomers do separate from the proper motion of the satellites,
the appearances which befal it by that of Jupiter about the sun. And therefore
it is, that they have taken for a simple and equal motion, a motion compounded
of an equal and unequal ; whence they have fallen into an error about the mean
motions, which in progress of time has so increased, that the configurations
drawn from their hypotheses for that time, have hardly any likeness at all with
those that are observed.

These old hypotheses were therefore far from serving to find out the longi-
tudes, as their authors intended them ; since it was impossible for them not
only to observe the eclipses of the satellites for some years to the nearness of an
hour, but even to make us know and distinguish at this time one satellite from
another, whereas, by the system of Signor Cassini, we may predict for many
years to come the eclipses of the satellites with as much preciseness as those of
the sun and moon by the astronomical tables.

ji Direct and Geometrical Method of investigating the Ophelia, the Eccentricities,
and the Proportions of the Orbits of the primary Planets, without supposing the
Equality of the Angle of Motion at the other Focus of the Planets Ellipsis. By
Mr, Edmund Halley.* Translated from the Latin. N° 128, p. 683.

The annual motion of the earth in the ecliptic, is the cause of an optical
inequality in the motions of the other planets, well known to the Copernican

* Dr. Edmund Halley, a celebrated mathematician and astronomer, as well as one of the most
eminent and useful members of the Royal Society, was born in London, An, l656, and educated at
St. Paul's School there; from whence he was sent l673 to Queen's College, Oxford, where he

TOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 327

astronomers by the name of the parallax of the orbit ; this inequality, which is
easily discovered by observations, I make the solid basis of the following

chiefly applied himself to mathematics and astronomy, in which he soon distinguished himself in a
remarkable manner, being only in his ipth year when he produced the above paper in the Philoso-
phical Transactions, on the aphelia and eccentricity of the planets. He made a great number of ac-
curate observations in astronomy; and tlie forming in that way an entire new catalogue of all the
stars was a favourite object ; but finding that project already occupied by Hevelius and Flamsteed, he
formed tlie design of completing their scheme, by the addition of the stars about the soutli pole,
which could not be seen by those astronomers in the latitude of Dantzic or Greenwich. For this
purpose, he left the university before he had taken any degree, and sailed for the island of St.
Helena in 1676, when he was only 20 years of age. Here, with great diligence he soon completed
his catalogue of those stars, with which he returned to England the latter end of l678, when the
Royal Society immediately elected him one of their members, and the king (Charles 2d) gave him a
mandamus to the university of Oxford, for the degree of A. M. In l679 he went to Dantzic, at the
request of tlie Royal Society to endeavour to adjust a dispute between M. Hevelius and Mr. Hook,
concerning the preference between plain and telescopic sights in astronomical instruments j from
whence he returned in about two months.

In 168O he set out on a tour tlirough France and Italy, to establish a friendly communication
among the astronomers of Europe. In Paris he completed his observations on the great comet of that
year, which he had before seen in England. He returned to England in 168I, and married a lady,
with whom he lived happily for 55 years after. In l6S3 he published his " Theory of the Variation
of the Magnetical Compass 3" in which he supposes the whole globe of the earth to be one great
magnet, having four magnetical poles or points of attraction, &c. The same year also he entered on
a new method of finding the longitude, by an accurate observation of the moon's motion. In the
beginning of ifiS-i, contemplating Kepler's laws of the periods and distances of the planets, he con-
cluded that the centripetal force must decrease in proportion to the square of the distance reciprocally.
He found himself however unable to make it out in any geometrical way ; and therefore, after ap-
plying in vain for assistance to Mr. Hook and Sir Christopher Wren, he repaired to Cambridge to Mr.
Newton, who fully supplied him with what he so ardently sought. But Halley having now found
an immense treasure in Newton, could not rest till he had prevailed with the owner to enrich the
public with it j and to this interview the world is in some measure indebted for the immortal Prin-
cipia of Newton. That great work was published in 16863 and Halley, who had the whole care of
tlie impression, prefixed to it a discourse of his own, giving a general account of the astronomical
part of the workj and also an elegant copy of verses in Latin. In l687 he undertook to explain the
reason why the Mediterranean Sea never rises higher, though there is no visible discharge of the
prodigious quantity of water that runs into it from nine large rivers, besides many small ones, and
tlie constant setting in of the current at the mouth of the Straits ; which he accounted for by the
great quantity of waters raised from its surface by evaporation, which he showed by a calculation was
fiiUy adequate to the purpose. Halley's active and elevated mind next ranged through various other
fields of science ; hence resulted his tracts on tlie constiuction of solid problems, or equations of the
3d and 4th powers, with a new method for the number and the limits of their roots ; exact tables of
the conjunctions of Venus and Mercury, with their use in discovering the parallax and distance of the
sun ; new tables for showing the values of annuities on lives, calculated from bills of mortality j the
universal theorem for finding the foci of optic glasses. But it would be endless to enumerate all his
valuable discoveries, then communicated to the Royal Society, and published in the Philosophical
Transactions, of which for many years his pieces were the chief ornament and support, in all the

328 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I676.

method ; where, besides observations, nothing more is supposed, than that the
orbits of the planets be elHptical, that the sun be in their common focus, and
in fine, that their periods be discovered in such a manner as that no sensible
error can arise, at least in two or three revolutions.

These things being granted, let S be the sun, fig, 5, pi. 10, ABCDE, the
orbit of the earth ; P the planet Mars, which is to be preferred on many ac-
counts ; and in the first place let the true time and place wherein Mars is in

sciences, astronomy, geometry, and algebra, optics and dioptrics, ballistics and artillery, speculative
and experimental philosophy, natural history, antiquities, philology, and criticism 3 all abounding with
ideas new, singular and useful.

In 1691 } the Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford being vacant, Mr. Halley applied for
that office, but without success : refusing to deny or conceal his sceptical turn of mind, though his
own extraordinary merits were supported by the interest of Newton, he was rejected, and tlie office
bestowed on Dr. Gregory. In 1698 he procured from King William the appointment of captain of
a ship, sent out for the express purpose of establishing his theory of the variation of the compass,
which he had advanced in l683. He made another voyage on the same design tlie year following,
and returned to England in September 1700, with numerous observations; from whence he soon
after published his general chart, exhibiting at one view the variation of the compass in all these seas
where the English navigators were acquainted. He was also soon after sent out again on a third
voyage, to ascertain the course of the tides in every part of the British channel, of which, in 1702,
he published a large chart. Soon after, at the request of the Emperor of Germany, he made two
journeys, to inspect the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, and to examine certain ports, which tlie emperor
intended to construct or improve. He returned in 1703, when he was appointed to succeed Dr.
Wallis as professor of geometry at Oxford, and was at the same time honoured with the degree of
doctor of laws. Here he soon employed himself in translating into Latin, from the Arabic, Apol-
lonius's Section of a Ratio, and in restoring tlie same author's two last books on the Section of a
Space, from tlie account given of them by Pappus; which were published in 1706. He next pre-
pared an edition of the whole works of ApoUonius, and ventured to supply the whole 8th book of the
Conies, the original of whicb was lost. To this he added, Serenus on the Sections of the Cylinder
and Cone, in Greek, with a Latin translation ; and published the whole in 1710. Besides these, the
Miscellanea Curiosa, in 3 volumes Svo, had come out under his direction, in 1708, consisting
chiefly of pieces of his own, extracted from the Philosophical Transactions.

In 1713, Dr. Halley succeeded Sir Hans Sloane, in the office of Secretary to the Royal Society;
which he resigned in 1721, having been appointed Astronomer Royal on the decease of Mr. Flam-
steed in 1719. And although he was now 63 or 64- years of age, yet here for the space of 18 years
he watched the heavens with the closest attention, hardly ever missing an observation, and, without
any assistant, performed the whole business of tlie observatory himself.

About 1737 he was seized with a paralytic disorder in one of his hands. However, he still con-
tinued to come regularly once a week, to meet his friends in town on Thursdays, before the meet-
ing of the Royal Society, at what is still called Dr. Halley's club. But his paralytic disorder in-
creasing, his strength gradually decreased, till he expired Jan. 14, 1742, in the 86th year of his age;
aiid his corpse was interred in the church-yard of Lee, near Blackheath. — Beside the works before-
mentioned. Dr. Halley's principal publications are, 1. Catalogus Stellarum Australium. 2. Tabulae
Astronomicae. 3. The Astronomy of Comets. Witli a multitude of papers in the Philosophical
Transactions, from volume xi to volume Ix.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 329

opposition to the sun, be observed ; for then the sun and the earth are in the
same right line with Mars, or, which always is the case when it lias latitude,
with that point where a perpendicular let fall from Mars meets the plane of the
ecliptic. Thus, in the scheme, S, A and P are in a right line ; then after 68/
days Mars returns to the same point P, where it was in opposition to the sun
in the former observation ; but since the earth does not return to A till after
7304- days, in B it respects the sun in the line SB, and Mars in the line BP;
and observing the longitudes of the sun and of Mars, all the angles of the tri-
angle PBS are given ; and supposing PS 100000 parts, the length of the line
SB is found in the same parts; in the same manner, after a second period of
Mars, the earth being in C, the line SC is found, and in like manner the lines
SD, SE, SF; and the differences of the observed places of the sun, are the
angles at the sun ASB, BSC, CSD, DSE: and thus at length we come to
this geometrical problem, viz. Three lines meeting in one of the foci of the
ellipsis being given, both in length and position, it is required to find the length
of the transverse diameter, together with the distance of the foci : the resolu-
tion of which is also extended to the other planets, if, after knowing the theory
of the earth's motion, we investigate, according to the method proposed by Dr.
Ward, Bishop of Sarum, in his Astronomiae Geometrica, lib. 2, part 2, cap. 5,
three distances of any planet from the sun in their positions. But because the
doctor supposes a planet to move in its orbit in such a manner, as in equal times
to describe equal angles about the other focus, and upon this builds his calcu-
lation ; it does not seem improper to show how the same thing may be done
without supposition, that which is inconsistent with observation.

Let S, %. 7, be the sun; ALBK the orbit of the earth; and let P be the
planet, or the point in the plane of the ecliptic, where a perpendicular from the
planet meets it; let AB be the line of the apses of the earth's orbit. In the first
place, let the longitude and latitude of the planet in P be observed, together
with the longitude of the sun from the earth in K; and after a revolution of the
same planet, the earth being in L, let again the positions of the planet and of
the sun be observed as before. Now from the observed longitudes of the sun,
and aphelion of the earth, the angle ASK, ASL are given, and consequently the
sides SK, andSL: for if the angle of the co-equated anomaly be acute, the
proportion is, as the difference of the mean distance and of the cosine of the
angle multiplied into the eccentricity, is to the aphelion distance, so is the
parhelion distance, to the distance of the planet from the sun in the given ano-
maly; but if the angle be obtuse, the first term of the proportion is the sum of
the two parts, as it was their difference in the former analogy: now in the
triangle KSL, the sides KS, LS, and the angle KSL are given; to find the side

VOL. II. U u

330 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1670,

KL, and the angles SKL, SLK. Again, in the triangle KLP, are given the
side KL, the angle K PL, the difference of the observed longitudes of the
planet, and PKL, the difference of the angles SKLlast found, and SKP the
elongation of the planet from the sun in the first observation, to find LP: then,
in the triangle LSP, the sides LS, LP, and the angle P L S, the elongation of the
planet from the sun in the second observation, are given, to find the side SP, and
the angle LSP; which being found, then as SP is to LP, so is the tangent of the
latitude observed from L, to the tangent of the inclination or latitude at the sun ;
and as the cosine of the inclination is to the radius, so is SPthe curtate distance,
to the planet's true distance from the sun. And thus we find the position and
length sought. Now it remains to show, how from three given distances from
the sun, together with the intercepted angles, the mean distance may be found,
with the eccentricity of the ellipsis.

Let S, tig. 8, be the sun, and SA, SB, SC three distances in due position;
and drawing AB, BC, let AB be the distance of the foci of an hyperbola, and
SA — SB = EH the transverse diameter: which being supposed, let the hy-
perbolic line be described, whose internal focus is the point A, the extremity of
the longer line S A: after the same manner, let B and C be the foci of the other
hyperbola, whose diameter SB — SC = KL; from which let the hyperbolic
line be described, having its internal focus in the point B. I say these two hy-
perbolas, thus described, intersect each other in the point F, which is the other
focus of the ellipsis; and drawing the line FA, FB, or FC ; SA -f- FA, SB +
FB, or SC + FC will be equal to the transverse diameter, and SF is the distance
of the foci ; which being supposed, the description of the ellipsis is very easy.
But since the reason of this construction is not clear to every one, it will not be
improper to illustrate it a little; therefore I say, that from the known property
of the ellipsis, SB + FB = SA + FA, and transposing the members of the
equation, FB — FA=:SA — SB; so that though FB and FA be miknown,
yet their difference is equal to SA — SB, that is, EH; and since from the
nature of the hyperbola, any two lines drawn from the foci to any point of the
curve constantly differ by the quantity of the transverse diameter ; it is plain
that the point F is somewhere in the curve of the hyperbola, whose transverse
diameter is equal to S A — SB, and the foci A and B. After the same manner
it may be demonstrated that the point F is in the hyperbola, whose diameter is
SB — SC, and foci B and C. Therefore it must necessarily be in the intersection
of these two hyperbolas, which since they intersect each other in one point only,
clearly show where the other focus of the required ellipsis is.

Now to perform the same analytically, suppose it done, and let FB = a, S A
-SB = FB- FA = /', AB='c, SB-SC= FC - FB = f/, BC =/, and

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 331

let the sine of the angle AB C = S, and its cosine = s. Then as c : Z> :: 2 a —
Z,:^iizL^and,i^^^^^=BDby36.3. Eucl. and as / : rf:: 2a + d:

^° "*" — ; and • • ~ ^ "'~ ^ ' = B G by the same proposition ; and to lessen

the trouble of calculation, let^^^^^ — = g, and - = h, likewise let -^-^ ~ —

= kf and -2. =z I; then BD :=z g -\- ha, and BG =z h •— la ; and because in

obtuse angled trianerle S the square of the base 1 the sum /.^,

every , , . i "1 • , r , ,m ofthesum

•^ acute angled triangle I is equal to J the diirerence

of the squares of the sides and of double the rectangle of the sides multiplied
into the cosine of the comprehended angle, it will he gg -\- Igha + hhaa -\-
kk — q,kla + llaa + 2^-^^ — Iglsa + ihhsa — ihlsaa equal to the square
of DG ; but DG is equal to the sine of the angle DFG or DBG multiplied
into a, that is, into FB ; for the quadrilateral FBDG is inscribed in a circle
whose diameter is FB: therefore SS aa = gg -|- Igha + hhaa -\- kk —
Qjkla. ■\- llaa + 2gks — Iglsa -\- ikhsa — ihlsaa, which equation is easily
resolved, since it does not exceed an adfected quadratic, and always consists of
these squares and rectangles; but the signs -\- and — are to be very cautiously
used to the rectangles, on account of the different nature of the three lines.
We have fitted our equation to tig. 8; but in any other case it will not be dif-
ficult from what is said above to constitute a similar one; and thus it is shown
how from three heliocentric places of a planet, and the observed distances from
the sun, its orbit may be described ; which formerly required five such observa-
tions.

An Extract of an account given by Mr. Flamsteedj of his own and Mr. Edmund
Halleys Observations concerning the Spots in the Sun, appearing in July and
August, 1676. N"^ 128, p. 687.

The following ephemeris of their daily places, was reduced from careful ob-
servations, made with the micrometer, of the distances of the spots from the
limb of the sun, and the differences of altitudes and azimuths from the upper and
under parts and sides of him. The comparing of the observations made in two dis-
tant places, Greenwich and Oxford, evince the diligence of the observers, and the
goodness of their instruments ; the differences between them being easily excu-
sable ; for that the spot had a diameter more considerable than any of the dif-
ferences, and was broken into several pieces.

Mr. Halley says, that he saw the spot again on the fifth day at 8h. 30 m. mane,
very near the limb of the sun, so that it appeared only as a fine line; but by

u u 2

332 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

reason of its fineness, and the too great height of the sun, he could not take
any measures to determine its place and latitude by ; and that, while the spot
continued one, as it was July 25, he measured to the middle of it ; as also when
the pieces were divided, but not far disjoined : afterwards, when they were sepa-
rated considerably, he observed the middle of the larger spot, which was to the
south, apparently, I suppose ; but really north : for so only his observations will
agree with those of Mr. Flamsteed exactly.

Hence it seems very evident, says Mr. Flamsteed, that the spot's way was not
inclined to the ecliptic six or seven degrees, as Scheiner and some others make
it, but much less, by the joint consent of the observations of both our observers,
Mr. Halley adds, that considering the motion of the spot across the sun's disk,
as both their observations give it, it appears, that the latitude was not so great at
its entrance into the sun as in the middle of him. And by Mr. Flamsteed's
observation it was greatest on the 1st of August, and then again inclining to-
wards the ecliptic. If you grant this, it will follow, infers Mr. Flamsteed, that
the sun's axis was inclined to the plane of the orbis magnus ; but the quantity of
this inclination must not be very great. The nodes of the sun's equinox and
ecliptic he guesses to be not far from the beginning of Cancer and Capricorn ;
and that from Cancer to Capricorn the earth is north of the sun's equator, from
Capricorn to Cancer, south of the same : and the period of the sun's revolution,
in respect of the fixed stars, 25 days, 9 4- hours sufficiently exact. Of which
things, these two observers say, they might have been more certain, had not the
spot in its passage broken into so many parts, and those often varied their posi-
tions to each other. These conjectures, though probable, yet when another of
the like phsenomena appears, will still deserve the further consideration of the
curious.

^n Extract of Signor CassinVs Letter concerning a Spot lately seen in the Sun:
together ivith a remarkable Observation of Saturn, made by the same. N° 128,
p. 689. Translated from tlie Latin.

We here observed the same solar spot as Mr. Flamsteed, from August 6 to
]4 N. S. ; and by comparing our observations, we found that it was in the mid-
dle of its course, in the sun's apparent disk, about midnight after the 8th of
August, at the apparent distance of 3 minutes from the centre towards the south.
It is divided into several parts, which separate from each other daily towards the
north and south; so that besides their com mensuration about the sun's axis, all
the parts have a direct motion of their own among themselves. I think this
spot is different from that which we observed in the preceding month of June.
For since that had the middle of its course in the apparent disk of the sun, on

TOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 333

the 28th day of the same month, it must have returned nearly to the same
situation, had it still existed, in the night following the 25th of July; as is
deduced both from its velocity, the observed time of its appearance, and also
from the course of the other spots, which we have seen to finish their period
about the sun in 1T\ or 1T\ days. Besides, its path is different from the pre-
ceding ; for the former was something more remote from the equator of the
spots, than the latter. And this, if it should have consistence enough, should
return to the middle of the sun on Sept. 5, in the morning.

From the scheme of the appearance of Saturn, as observed by M. Hevelius a
year ago, I perceive that he made use of telescopes much inferior to our's. For
at that time, and now also (Aug. 1676), in the globe of Saturn we observed an
obscure zone, a little south of the centre, not unlike the zones of Jupiter. Then
the breadth of the annul us was divided into parts, by an obscure line, apparently
elliptical, but in reality circular, as it were into two concentric rings, the interior
of which was brighter than the exterior. This phasis I saw immediately after
the emersion of Saturn from the sun's rays, through the whole year, quite to his
immersion ; first with a telescope of 35 feet, and afterwards with a less^ of 20
feet. See fig. 1^ pi. xi.

An Intimation given in the Journal des Sgavans, of a sure and easy way to make
all sorts of large Telescopical Glasses ; with a generous offer of furnishing
industrious Astronomers with them gratis. By M. Borelli. N° 128^ p. 69 1.

Mons. Borelli, a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, whose
love for natural philosophy, and chiefly chemistry, has been long known, has
found out a sure and very easy method of working all sorts of large telescopical
glasses. He has already carried the experience of his secret to great extent,
having made one of them very good of 200 feet, wrought on both sides on the
same rule: which shows, that if he had wrought it flat on both sides, the glass
would have been of 400 feet.

This easiness of making large glasses, and the desire of procuring some ad-
vancement to astronomical discoveries, have induced him to make presents of
them in divers places to several persons capable of using them : and the same
motive induces him to make the like offer, not only to the astronomers that are
dispersed up and down in the kingdom of France, but also to those that are in
foreign countries, especially in those parts, where there is some established
academy or society for astronomical observations ; offering in this case, to every
one of such societies, three very good glasses, one of 10 or 12 feet for a cham-
ber: another of 25 or 30 feet for ordinary observations, and a third of 60 or 80
feet for making new discoveries.

S34 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I676.

Private persons who are not in a condition to make engines for large glasses,
may at least make use of glasses of 14 or 20 feet, which he is willing to send them,
to observe the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, which happen almost daily, and
afford so fair a way for establishing the longitudes over all the earth. For,
besides that these eclipses are very frequent, the emersion and immersion of these
satellites, especially in the shadow of Jupiter, is so momentary and so sensible,
that they may be observed with the greatest exactness, being altogether exempt
from those essential inconveniencies that accompany the eclipses of the sun and
moon, which also are rare, and whose beginning and end are always doubtful,
by reason of a certain ambiguous light.

Since M. Borelli has found this way of working glasses, he entrusted the
secret of it to a member of the academy above-mentioned; and he proposes to
publish the same hereafter, with some other considerable observations on the
same glasses.

Exceptions against Mr. Newton's Experiments, and Theory of Light and Colours,
By Mr. Lucas of Liege. N" 128, p. 692.

Mr. Gascoigne having received your obliging letter of Jan. 18, with fresh
directions from Mr. Newton ; but wanting convenience to make the experiment,
he has requested me to supply his want. In compliance with this request I have
made many trials ; theissue whereof I here acquaint you with; next, with some
exceptions, grounded on experiments, against Mr. Newton's new theory of
light and colours.

The verticle angle of my prism was 60 degrees, the distance of the wall,
whereon the coloured spectrum appeared, from the window, about 18 feet. The
diameter of the hole in the window-shutters about \ of an inch, which was
occasionally contracted to half the said diameter; but still with equal success as
to the result of the experiment. The refractions on both sides the prism, were
equally as near as I could make them, and consequently about 48° 40', the re-
fractive power of glass being computed according to the ratio of the sines 2 to
3. The distance of the prism from the hole in the shutter was about 2 inches:
the room darkened to that degree as to equal the darkest night, while the hole
in the shutter was covered.

Now as to the issue of my trials; I constantly found the length of the colour-
ed image, transverse to the axis of the prism, considerably greater than its
breadth, whenever the experiment was made on a clear day; but when a bright
cloud was near the sun, I found it sometimes exactly as Mr. Line mentions, viz.
broader than long, especially while the prism was placed at a great distance from
the hole. Which experiment will not, I conceive, be questioned by Mr. New-

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 335

ton, it being so agreeable to the received laws of refractions. And indeed the ob •
servations of these two learned persons, as to this particular, are easily reconcile-
able to each other, and both to truth; Mr. Newton contending only for the
length of the image, transverse to the axis of theprism, in a very clear day ; and Mr.
Line only nnaintaining the excess of breadth, parallel to the same axis, while the
sun is in a bright cloud. Though as to what is further delivered by Mr. Newton,
and opposed by Mr. Line, namely, that the length of the coloured image was
five times the diameter of its breadth; I never yet have found the excess above
thrice the diameter, or at most 3 i, while the refractions on both sides the prism
were equal. So much as to the matter of fact.

Now as to Mr. Newton's theory of light and colours, I confess, his neat set
of very ingenious and natural inferences, was to me on the first perusal a strong
conjecture in favour of his new doctrine. But since several experiments of re-
fractions remain still untouched by him, I conceived a further search into them
would be very proper, in order to a better discovery of the truth of his assertion.
For, accordingly as they are found either agreeing with, or disagreeing from, his
new theory, they must needs much strengthen, or wholly overthrow the same.
The experiments I pitched upon for this purpose, are as follow :

1. Having frequently observed that the form of objects viewed in the micro-
scope, or rather of the microscope itself, consists almost in an indivisible point,
I concluded that two very small pieces of silk, the one scarlet, the other violet
colour, placed near together, should, according to Mr. Newton's theory, appear
in the microscope in a very different degree of brightness, in regard that their
unequal refrangibility must cause the scarlet rays or species to over-reach the
retina, while placed in the due focus of the violet ones, and consequently occa-
sion a sensible confusion in the vision of the former, one and the same point of
the scarlet object affecting several nerves in the retina. Yet on frequent trials
I have not been able to perceive any inequality in this point.

1. The second experiment was made in water. I took a brass ruler, and
fastening to it several pieces of silk, red, yellow, green, blue, and violet, 1 placed
it at the bottom of a square vessel of water : then I retired from the vessel so far
as not to be able to see the ruler and coloured silks otherwise than by help of
the refracted ray. Now, did Mr. Newton's doctrine hold, I conceived I should
not see all the said colours in a straight line with the ruler, as the unequal refran-
gibility of different rays must needs displace some more than others. Yet in
effect, on many trials, I constantly found them in as straight a line as the bare
ruler had appeared in. 3. To confirm this experiment, I added a second refrac-
tion to the former of the water, by placing my prism so as to receive perpendi-
cularly the refracted species of the silk and ruler; by which only the emergent

336 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676,

species suffered a second refraction. But still with equal success, as to their^
appearing in a straight line, to the eye placed behind the prism. 4. To these
two refractions I further added a third, by receiving the coloured species
obliquely on the prism ; by which both incident and emergent species suffered
their respective refractions. But still with the same success as formerly, as to the
straight line they appeared in.

For further assurance in this experiment, lest prepossession, occasioned from
previous knowledge of the silks situation in a straight line, might possibly pre-
judice the judgment of the eye, as sometimes I have observed to happen to the
judgment the eye passes on the distance of objects, I called into the room some
unconcerned persons, wholly ignorant what the experiment aimed at ; and de-
manding whether they saw not the coloured silks and ruler in a crooked line ?
they answered in the negative.

5. The next experiment I made in uncompounded Colours, (as Mr. Newton
terms them, prop. 5 and 13) as follows; Having cast two coloured images on
the wall, so as the scarlet colour of the one fell in a straight line, parallel to the
horizon, with the violet of the other; I then looked on both through another
prism, and found them still appear in a straight line parallel to the horizon, as
thev had formerly done to the naked eye. Now according to Mr. Newton's
assertion of different refrangibility in different rays, I conceive the violet rays
should suffer a greater refraction in the prism at the eye, than the scarlet ones,
and consequently both colours should not appear in a straight Hne parallel to the
horizon.

6. Another experiment I made, in order to some further discovery of that
surprising phenomenon of the coloured image, which occasioned Mr. Newton's
ingenious theory of light and colours, as also his excellent invention of the
reflecting telescope and microscope. Having then sometimes suspected, that
not only the direct sun-beams, but also other extraneous light, might possibly
influence tlie coloured spectrum, I hoped to discover the truth of this suspicion
by means of the sun-spots, made to appear in the coloured image by placing a
telescope behind the prism. But my endeavours proving ineffectual herein, by
reason of some intervening difficulties, I thought at length of a more feasible
method in order to the designed discovery, as in the following experiment.

I fastened a very white paper circle, about an inch in diameter, on my window-
shutter ; and viewing it through my prism, I found a coloured image painted
by it on my retina, answerable in almost all respects to the image of the sun-
beams on the wall, especially when the paper circle was indifferently well illumi-
nated. This image indeed appeared contrary to the former as to the situation of
colours, that is, the scarlet appearing above, the violet below, though but faint.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 337

But this I was not surprised at, having observed, on dissecting the eye, that
objects are painted on the retina after a contrary posture to what they appear to
sight. Having thus rendered the coloured image much more tractable than for-
merly it was, I conceived good hopes of some further discovery in this point.

In pursuance then of my former suspicion, having fixed my pri^sm in a steady
\ postiire, I caused the paper C. (fig. 2, 3, pi. xi.) to be applied close to the paper
circle a b d : whereupon the former violet d, and scarlet colour of C, vanished
into whiteness. Next, I removed the circle from the shutter, and placed it in
the open window, supported only by the edge d : on which, to my astonish-
ment, all the former colours exchanged postures in the retina, the scarlet now
appearing below, the violet above ; the intermediate colours scarcely discernible.
And here, by the bye, it is very remarkable, that during this observation I clearly
perceived both blue and scarlet light to be transparent, being able to discern
several objects through both, namely, steeples opposite to my window. Whence
it follows, that these colours do in great part arise from the neighbouring light.
Lastly, I placed the paper circle anew, so as the one half b, was fastened to the
shutter, the other semicircle a, being exposed to the open air. On which the
semicircle a, became bordered with violet above, and scarlet below: but the
other semicircle b, quite the reverse. Hence I make the following inferences.

First, that not only the light reflected from the paper circle, but also from the
ambient air, has great influence on the coloured image, especially as to the
violet and scarlet colours. Whence perhaps it will not hereafter seem strange,
that the coloured spectrum on the wall is so long, but only that the breadth is
not greater. Secondly, were there a more luminous body behind the sun, we
should in all likelihood have the colours of the spectrum in a contrary situation
to what they appear in at present : whence, thirdly, it seems to follow, that the
present situation and order of colours arise not from any intrinsical property of
refrangibility, as maintained by Mr. Newton, but from contingent and extrinsi-
cal circumstances of neighbouring objects. For accordingly as the body be-
hind the paper-circle was more or less illuminated than the circle itself, all the
several colours changed their situation.

8. The next experiment was made in order to Mr. Newton's doctrine of pri-
> mary colours, as prop. 5. Having covered the hole in the window-shutter with
a thin slice of ivory, the transmitted light appeared yellow; but on adding three,
four, and more slices, it became red. Whence it seems to follow, that yellow-
ness of light is not a primary colour, but a compound of red, &c.

Q. The last experiment was made in reference to Mr. Newton's 12th prop,
where from his own principles he renders a very plausible reason of a surprising
phenomenon, related by Mr. Hook, namely of two liquors, the one blue, the

VOL. II. X X

338 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

other red, l)oth severally transparent, yet both, if placed together, became
opaque. The reason whereof, says Mr. Newton, is, because if one liquor trans-
mitted only red, the other only blue, no rays could pass through both. In re-
ference then to this point, I filled two small glasses with flat polished bottoms,
the one with aquafortis, deeply tinged blue ; the other with oil of turpentine
coloured red; both to that degree, as to represent all objects through them
respectively blue or red. Then placing the one upon the other, I was able to
discern several bodies through both : whereas according to Mr. Newton's theory,
no object should appear through both liquors, because if one transmit only red,
the other only blue, no rays can pass through both.

Mr. Neivtons Answer to the preceding Letter. N° 128, p. 698.

Sir. — ^The things opposed by Mr. Line being upon trials found true and
granted me, I begin with the new question about the proportion of the length
of the image to its breadth. This I call a new one; for, though Mr. Line in
his last letter spake against so great a length as I assign, yet as it seems to me,
it was not to grant any transverse length shorter than that assigned by me, for
in his first letter he absolutely denied that there would be any such length : but
to lay the greater emphasis upon his discourse whilst in defence of common
optics he was disputing in general against a transverse image; and therefore in
my answer I did not prescribe the just quantity of the refracting angle with
which I would have the experiment repeated, which would have been a neces-
sary circumstance, had the dispute been about a just proportion of the length to
the breadth. Yet I added* this note, that the larger the angle of the prism is,
the greater will be the length in proportion to the breadth, not imagining but
that when he had found in any prism the length of the image transverse to the
axis, he would easily thence conclude, that a prism with a greater angle would
make the image longer, and consequently that by using an angle great enough
he might bring it to equal or exceed the length assigned by me, as indeed he
might; for, by taking an angle of 70or 75 degrees, or a little greater, he might
have made the length not only five but six or eight times the breadth, and
more. No wonder, therefore, that Mr. Lucas found the image shorter than I
did, seeing he tried the experiment with a less angle.

The angle indeed which I used was but about 63° 12', and his is set down
60°, the difference of which from mine being but 3° 12', is too little to recon-
cile us, but yet it will bring us considerably nearer together. And if his angle
was not exactly measured, but the round number of 60° set down by guess, or

* In my first letter in Philosophical Transactions, No. 121.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

339

VOL. XI.]

by a less accurate measure, as I suspect by the conjectural measure of the re-
fraction of his prism by the ratio of the sines 2 to 3, set down at the same
time, instead of an experimental one, then might it be two or three degrees
less than 60, if not still less; and all this, if it should be so, would take away
the greatest part of the difference between us.

But however it be, I am well assured my own observation was exact enough.
For I have repeated it divers times since the receipt of Mr. Lucas's letter, and
that without any considerable difference of my observations, either from each
other or from what I wrote before. And that it might appear experimentally,
how the increase of the angle increases the length of the image, and also that
nobody who has a mind to try the experiment exactly, might be troubled to pro-
cure a prism which has an angle just of the size assigned by me; I tried the
experiment with divers angles, and have set down my trials in the following
table: where the first column expresses the six angles of two prisms which I
used, which were measured as exactly as I could, by applying them to the angle
of a sector; and the second column expresses in inches the length of the image
made by each of those angles ; its breadth being 1 inches, its distance from the
prism 1 8 feet 4 inches, and the breadth of the hole in the window shutter -i- of
an inch.

Lengths ^ Lengths

of image. » ^* of image.

74- Second prism. ^ 54° o' 7i

9i 62 12 10^

10^ ^ 63 48 101-

First prism. ^

Angles.

56° 10'
60 24
63 26

You may perceive, that the length of the images, in respect of the angles
that made them, are something greater in the second prism than in the first ;
but that was because the glass, of which the second prism was made, had the
greater refractive power. The days in which I made these trials were pretty
clear, but not so clear as I desired, and therefore afterwards meeting with a day
as clear as I desired, I repeated the experiment with the second prism, and foimd
the lengths of the image made by its several angles to be about ^ of an inch
greater than before, the measures being those set down in this table.

r Angles.

The second prism. ^ ^^

0'
62 12
I 63 48

Lengths
of image.

/ 3
104-
11

,340 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

The reason of this difference I apprehend was, that in the clearest days the
light of the white skies, which dilutes and renders invisible the faintest colours
at the ends of the image, is a little diminished in a clear day, and so gives leave
to the colours to appear to a greater length ; the sun's light at the same time
becoming brisker, and so strengthening the colours, and making the faint ones
at the two ends more conspicuous. For I have observed that in days something
cloudy, whilst the prism has stood unmoved at the window, the image would
grow a little longer or a little shorter, accordingly as the sun was more or less
obscured by thin clouds which passed over it ; the image being shortest when
the cloud was brightest and the sun's light faintest. Whence it is easy to ap-
prehend, that if the light of the clouds could be quite taken away, so that the
sun might appear surrounded with darkness, or if the sun's light were much
stronger than it is, the colours would still appear to a greater length.

In all these observations the breadth of the image was just 1 inches. But
observing that the sides of the two prisms I used were not exactly plain, but
a little convex, the convexity being about so much as that of a double convex-
glass of a 16 or 18-foot telescope, I took a third prisjn, whose sides were as
much concave as those of the other were convex, and this made the breadth of
the image to be 1 inches and a third part of an inch; the angles of this
prism, and the lengths of the image made by each of those angles, being those
expressed in this table.

Angles of the prism.

58°

594-
624.

Lengths of the image.
8-1- inches.
9

104-

In this case, you see the concave figure of the sides of the prism, by making
the rays diverge a little, causes the breadth of the image to be greater in pro-
portion to its length than it would be otherwise. And this I thought fit to give
you notice of, that Mr. Lucas may examine whether his prism have not this
fault. If a prism may be had with sides exactly plain, it may do well to try the
experiment with that ; but it is better, if the sides be about so much convex as
those of mine are, because the image will thereby become much better defined.
For this convexity of the sides gives the same effect as if you should use a prism
with sides exactly plain, and between it and the hole in the window shutter,
place an object-glass of an 18-foot telescope, to make the round image of the
sun appear distinctly defined on the wall when the prism is taken away, and
consequently the long image made by the prism to be much more distinctly
defined, especially at its straight sides, than it would be otherwise.

yoL. Xr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. S41

One thing more I shall add: that the utmost length of the image, from the
faintest red at one end to the faintest blue at the other, must be measured. For
in my first letter about colours, where I set down the length to be five times the
breadth, I called that length the utmost length of the image; and I measured
the utmost length, because I account all that length to be caused by the imme-
diate light of the sun, seeing the colours, as 1 noted above, become visible to
the greatest length in the clearest days, that is, when the light of the sun trans-
cends most the light of the clouds. Sometimes there will happen to shoot out
from both ends of the image a glaring light a good way beyond these colours,
but this is not to be regarded, as not appertaining to the image. If the mea-
sures be taken right, the whole length will exceed the length of the straight
sides by about the breadth of the image.

By these things set down thus circumstantially, I presume Mr. Lucas will be
enabled to accord his trials of the experiment with mine; so nearly at least,
that there shall not remain any very considerable difference between us. For,
if some little difference should still remain, that need not trouble us any further,
seeing there may be many various circumstances which may conduce to it; such
as are not only the different figures of prisms, but also the different refractive
power of glasses, the different diameters of the sun at divers times of the year,
and the little errors that may happen in measuring lines and angles, or in
placing the prism at the window ; though, for my part, I took care to do these
things as exactly as I could. However, Mr. Lucas may make sure to find the
image as long or longer than I have set down, if he take a prism whose sides
are not hollow ground, but plain, or, which is better, a very little convex, and
whose refracting angle is as much greater than that I used, as that he has hi-
therto tried it with, is less; that is, whose angle is about 66 or 67 degrees, or,
if he will, a little greater.

Concerning Mr. Lucas's other experiments, I am much obliged to him that
he would take these things so far into consideration, and be at so much pains
for examining them; and I thank him so much the more, because he is the
first that has sent me an experimental examination of them. By this I may
presume he really desires to know what truth there is in these matters. But
yet it will conduce to his more speedy and full satisfaction, if he a little change
the method which he has propounded, and instead of a multitude of things, try
only the experimentum crucis. For it is not number of experiments but weight
to be regarded; and where one will do, what need many? Had I thought
more requisite, I could have added more; for before I wrote my first letter to
you about colours, I had taken much pains in trying experiments about them,
and written a tractate on that subject, wherein I had set down at large the

342 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iQyGi

principal of the experiments I had tried ; amongst which there happened to be
the principal of those experiments which Mr. Lucas has now sent me. And as
for the experiments set down in my first letter to you, they were only such as I
thought convenient to select out of that tractate. — But suppose those had been
my whole store, yet Mr. Lucas should not have grounded his discourse upon a
supposition of my want of experiments, till he had examined those few. For
if any of those be demonstrative, they will need no assistants, nor leave room
for further disputing about what they demonstrate.

, The main thing he goes about to examine is, the different refrangibility of
light. And this I demonstrated by the experimentum crucis. Now if this de-
monstration be good, there needs no further examination of the thing ; if not
good, the fault of it is to be shown : for the only way to examine a demon-
strated proposition is, to examine the demonstration. Let that experiment
therefore be examined in the first place, and that which it proves be acknow-
ledged, and then if Mr. Lucas wants my assistance to unfold the difficulties
which he fancies to be in the experiments he has propounded, he shall freely
have it ; for then I suppose a few words may make them plain to him : whereas
should I be drawn from demonstrative experiment to begin with those, it might
_ create us both the trouble of a long dispute, and by the multitude of words
cloud, rather than clear up the truth. For if it has already cost us so much
trouble to agree upon the matter of fact in the first and plainest experiment, and
yet we are not fully agreed; what an endless trouble might it create us, if we
should give ourselves up to dispute upon every argument that occurs, and what
would become of truth in such a tedious dispute ? The way therefore that I
propound, being the shortest and clearest, not to say the only proper way, I
question not but Mr. Lucas will be glad that I have recommended it, seeing he
professes that it is the knowledge of truth that he seeks after. And therefore
at present I shall say nothing in answer to his experimental discourse, but this
in general ; that it has proceeded partly from some misunderstanding of what he
writes against, and partly from want of due caution in trying experiments ; and
that amongst his experiments there is one, which, when duly tried, is next to
the experimentum crucis, the most conspicuous experiment I know, for proving
the different refrangibility of light, which he brings it to prove against.

By the postscript of Mr. Lucas's letter, one not acquainted with what has
passed, might think, that he quotes the observation of the Royal Society against
me ; whereas the relation of their observation, which you sent to Liege, con-
tained nothing at all about the just proportion of the length of the image to its
breadth according to the angle of the prism, nor any thing more (so far as I can
perceive by your last) than what was pertinent to the things then in dispute, viz.

.VOL. XI.] .PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 343

that they found them succeed as I had affirmed. And therefore since Mr.
Lucas has found the same success, I suppose that when he expressed that he
mucli rejoiced to see the trials of the Royal Society agree so exactly with his, he
meant only so far as his agreed with mine.

And because I am again upon this first experiment, I shall desire that Mr.
Lucas will repeat it with all the exactness and caution that may be, regard being
had to the information about it, set down in this letter; and then I desire to
have the length and breadth of the image with its distance from the prism, set
down exactly in feet and inches, and parts of an inch, that I may have an op-
portunity to consider what relation its length and breadth have to the sun's dia-
meter. For I know that Mr. Lucas's observation cannot hold, where the re-
fracting angle of the prism is full 6o degrees, and the day is clear, and the full
length of the colours is measured, and the breadth of the image answers to the
sun's diameter : and seeing I am well assured of the truth and exactness of my
own observations, I shall be unwilling to be diverted by any other experiments,
from having a fair end made of this in the first place. Sir, I am, &c.

Postscript. — I had like to have forgotten to advise, that the experimentum
crucis, and such others as shall be made for knowing the nature of colours, be
made with prisms which refract so much, as to make the length of the image
five times its breadth, and rather more than less ; for otherwise experiments
will not succeed so plainly with others as they have done with me.

An Account of two Books. N° 128, p. 705.

I. Tractatus de Ventriculo et Intestinis, cui praemittitur alius de Partibus
Continentibus in genere, et in specie de Partibus Abdominis ; Auth. Franc.
Glissonio, M. D. et Coll. Med. Lond. Socio, nee non Soc. Regalis College.
Lond. 1676, 4to.

In this treatise Dr. Glisson reasons largely concerning the nature of the
muscular fibre, irritability, the peristaltic motion of the intestinal canal, di-
gestion, &c. &c.

n. Pharmacopee Royale, Galenique et Chymique, par Moyse Charas, Apo-
ticaire Artiste du Roy en son Jardin Royal des Plantes. A Paris, 1676, 4to.

This pharmacopaeia was once in great repute, but is now quite obsolete.

Observations on some considerable Parts of Asia. By M. Tavemier. N° 129,

p. 711.

Ispahan is about the size of Paris; but Paris has ten times more people than
Ispahan. The air of Gomron, a seaport town in Persia, from April to Novem-

344 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

ber, is so unhealthy, that it breeds a very malignant fever, which, if it kill not,
leaves behind the jaundice for the rest of the patient's life. After the end of
March the wind changes, blowing mostly from the west or south-west, and is
sometimes so hot and suffocating, that it stops respiration : whence the Arabians
call it El-Samiel, that is, a wind of poison. And what seems very strange, if
one lay hold on an arm or a leg, or any other part of a body, that has been
newly stifled by this wind, it remains in the hand like grease, and as if the
body had been dead a month before. There is the same kind of air about
Mousset and Bagdat ; concerning which he relates, that travelling once on the
road from Ispahan to Bagdat, he would have been stifled, if he had not been in
the company of some Arabian merchants, who, as soon as they perceived the
wind coming, made him light from his beast, and throw himself as they did,
flat upon the ground on his belly, covering themselves well with their cloaks.
In which posture having remained for half an hour, and with much ado saved
themselves from being suffocated, they rose up, finding their horses wet all
over, and so faint that they were not able to carry their riders. But it is ob-
served, that upon any river, the same wind does no harm. Sometimes the
blast is so hot, that it burns as if lightning had passed.

In Persia few children have the small-pox, but, instead thereof, most of them
are troubled with the scurf on the head, till they are 10 or 12 years old. — The
Persians know nothing of the gout or stone; only the Armenians, who drink
more wine than water, are aflflicted with the latter of those two diseases. — ^The
Persians, especially the better sort of them, are far less subject to sickness than
the Europeans, because they fail not in spring to take inwardly a decoction of
the wood of China, which they let boil for several days in water, according to
the dose prescribed by the physician. E. g. the first day they put one ounce of
it into three pints of water, increasing the dose of the root every day to the
12th, and thence to the 20th day. This drink is said to be very agreeable to
the taste, and of the colour of our pale wines. While they are drinking this
decoction, they must eat nothing but a little bread and a roasted chicken, with-
out salt; and after they have done drinking, they must forbear eating fruit a
whole month. When this drink is taken, the patient must be very well covered
to sweat; which is copious, and all his linen becomes yellow, and even the
walls of his chamber. This root soon spoils, and whilst it is good the author
says a pound of it costs 100 crowns.

The women of the Turkish seraglio are always chewing mastic, to keep their
teeth clean and white. — ^When the Nogaies, a sort of Tartars, have received
any wound, they use no other ointment than boiled flesh, applied hot to the
wound. And when the wound is deep, they thrust in a piece of fat as hot as

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 345

the patient can bear it : and for this purpose they count the flesh and fat of
horses best of all. — Those that are troubled with the colic, are ordered to eat
horse-flesh; which they say cures many. — Near the isle of Baharen, they fetch
fresh water from the bottom of the sea; and about Cape Comorin, and along
the coast of Coromandel and Malabar, where there is no sweet water, the peo-
ple come with their vessels at the time of low water as near to the sea as they
can, and digging about two feet in the sand, they meet with fresh water fit for
drinking.

Camels go with young 1 1 months, and can be without drink many days, even
to nine; and the larger sort of them are able to carry a 1000 or 1500 pound
weight. Their milk is a sovereign remedy against the dropsy. — ^The cows about
Balsara, having no grass to feed on, are fed with the heads of fishes and dates
boiled together. — The palm trees in the country of Balsara are thus propagated.
They dig a hole in the earth, in which they range 250 or 300 date-kernels, one
a-top of another pyramid wise, with the point upwards, so that the pyramid
ends in one kernel: which being covered with earth, the tree grows up. — Craw
fish creep up the white mulberry trees about sun-set, eating the fruit; and at
break of day come down again into the rivers, near which those trees grow. —
Porcupines kill lions, by darting their quills into their body.* — All along the
Gulph of Persia there are vast numbers of a kind of locusts, which are eatable,
and of which our traveller affirms that he opened one that was six inches long,
and found 1 7 little ones in its belly, all of them moving.-^

There is a talc in Persia, which being beaten into pieces, as small as lentils,
and tinged with any colour, they mix it with chalk well slaked, and rubbing
their walls with it, make them shine like jasper, which is very agreeable to the
eye. — On the west of the Caspian Sea, a little above Chimaki, there is a rock
whence drops an oil, of which the Persians make a varnish, by infusing in it
some drops of mastic. This oil whilst issuing out of the rock, is as clear as
water ; but afterwards thickens gradually. — ^The best glue in the world is made
of sturgeon ; it being so strong that you may sooner break the matter thus
glued any where else than in the place where it is glued. The method of the
Turks in preparing it is this : when they have gutted the fish, they meet with a
certain skin that covers the flesh ; X and this they pull away from about the head
to the end of the belly. This skin is very glutinous, and of the thickness of

* This is a vulgar error.

f Might not these " 17 little ones" have been the maggots of some other genus, or worms j sine©
locusts are oviparous ?

J M. Tavernier is not accurate in matters which relate to natviral history; which, indeed, was not
to be expected from a merchant. This " certain skin" is tlie air-bladder of the sturgeon.

VOL. II. y Y

346 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I67Q,

two paper leaves : this they roll up to the thickness of a man's arm, and so put
it to dry in the sun : and when they would use it, they beat it with a hammer,
and being well beaten they break it into little bits, which they put and keep in
water for about half an hour in a little pot, and so set it over a gentle fire,
stirring it continually till it becomes liquid, and taking heed of keeping it from
boiling, which would utterly spoil it.

The Persians are exquisitely skilful in damaskeening with vitriol; but the
nature of the steel used by them contributes very much to the good work-
manship. This steel they fetch from Golconda, which is the only kind known
that can be well damaskeened. When it is put to the fire to temper it, they
very carefully give it only a little redness, like that of a cherry-colour; and in-
stead of quenching it in water as we do, they only wrap it in a wet piece of
linen cloth ; for if they should give it the same degree of heat that we do to
ours, it would become as brittle as glass.

Description of a New Hygroscope. By Mr. John Coniers, jipothecary and
Citizen. In a Letter to the Editor, Oct. 23, 1676. N° 129, p. 715.

Among many trials made by me for the readiest and best discovery of the
change or temperature of the air and weather, I have found out that by apply-
ing a hand and a circular index, or a quarter-circle, to a pannel made of duly
seasoned deal wood, and that divided or slit in two parts, playing loose in a
groove, and only fastened to the frame at each end, you have one of the best,
if not the very best contrivance, for that purpose. I have made two several con-
trivances of it ; the one I invented about five or six years since ; here explained
in the first figure, with some observations made at that time; the other some
years after the former : both which I thought fit to communicate to you, to
dispose of them as you shall think good.

So far the letter : which, with the invention and contrivance itself, the editor
would have given notice of before this, and at the time when in N° 127 of these
tracts the like invention, imparted from Dublin, was described, if he had not
then been altogether unacquainted therewith. Wherefore, to do right to
the ingenuity of this inventor, the description of this his instrument, in its
two several contrivances, shall now be faithfully set down here, with the obser-
vations made by the former of them.

The Explanation of the first Contrivance, in Figure A, PI. 11.

A AAA is the frame of wood, for the two pannels of deal to play loose in, at
top and bottom, to which at the two ends they are fastened. — BB, the two
pannels of slit deal, three feet deep, and three feet broad a-piece, with a

VOL. XI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 34f

distance left in the middle for the scope of the motion. — C, the hand fastened
by the axletree to the plate, and also with nail-holes which are to fasten it to
the middle of the pannel, within half an inch of the scope for motion ; at the
lower or shorter end of the axletree there is fastened, by a wire like an S, a
small silver chain within a straw's breadth of the axletree; which chain is to be
carried and placed across the distance between the two pannels, and fastened to
the opposite pannel by a brass noose, through which it is to slip, so as to be
taken up or let down at pleasure. — D, the roller, with a weight annexed, which
by a string is fastened to the lower end of the hand C ; so that, as it relaxes and
gives way, the weight will adjust the motion of the hand to the index E. This
is an index of paper, pasted on the pannel opposite to the hand, and so, as in
this figure, placed near the top, for the better convenience of the hand's motion;
and this index being but a quarter of a circle, is divided into inches, more or
fewer according to the scope which the hand of the pannels requires for their
motion; but when the relax shall require more room for the hand, then the
chain is to be taken up one link more, and thus there will be more play up-
wards and downwards : which taking up of the chain may yet be again repeated,
when there is occasion, or the time of the year requires it.

Now if the chain be placed near the axis, the motion will be the nicer and
larger; if farther off then it will be less : For instance, the motion of 2 more
than that of 3, and 3 than that of 4, &c. as may be seen by the figures 2,
3, 4, 5, 6; which are placed in this figure below the hand.

These pannels of deal board move by shrinking most in summer, and swell-
ing most in winter seasons ; but will vary from this, according to the greater
degree of heat or cold, moisture or drought. — For the most part, especially in
spring and summer, this motion happens only in the day time ; for then gene-
rally all night it rests and moves very seldom. — ^That one kind or manner of this
motion happens in dry fair weather ; but sometimes in the forepart of the fore-
noon, and sometimes not until the latter part of the forenoon, and then it re-
laxes or swells the deal for about two or three hours, more or less ; and then all
the afternoon it shrinks, sometimes even when a small rain has newly fallen or
is then falling; but this not so often, and more seldom in winter, or cold moist
weather. — ^This shrinking is very often gradual, or for the most part a little
after a moist time, viz. the first day after moisture it shrinks a little, the second
day more, and so still more according to the time of year, and as it is then in-
clined to moisture or drought, heat or cold. — The winds being in the north,
north-east and east, winter and summer, for the most part at that time the deal
shrinks in the night as well as in the day; but not so much : which is a sign of

Y y2

348 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

drying weather, and sometimes of frost or cold in winter ; heat or scorching in
summer in a clear day. But on the contrary, the south winds blowing, or the
west and south-west, the deal then always relaxes, or at least is at a stand,
provided this happen in the day time; for if in the night not so much; and so
this will do some considerable time before rain. — By a constant observation of
this experiment of the deal's motion and rest, you may be able to guess at the
situation of the wind, without a weather-cock, provided you have a common
and a sealed thermometer. — Also you may know the time of the year; for in
the spring it moves quicker and more, than in winter ; in summer it shrinks
more than in the spring ; in autumn it is less in motion than in summer.

The Explanation of the Second Contrivance hy a Circular Motion for an Annual
Revolution; and first in the Outward Parts i represented in Fig. 5, PI. 11.

A AAA is the frame of wood for the pannels of deal to play loose in, at top
and bottom. — BBBB, the crosses of deal or iron fastened to the frame on each
side; to which is annexed the circular index, divided into 12 parts; in the centre
of which the axis b for the hands is placed. — CC, the two pannels of slit deal,
each 3 feet deep, and 3 feet broad ; fastened at each end of the frame^ with a
distance left in the middle for the scope of the motion.

The Explanation of the Inward Work in Fig. 6.

Aj A, the two hands. — B,b, the two brass pulleys or rollers, the one larger,
the other less ; to the larger a fiat leaden weight is fastened with a cat-gut string ;
to the smaller is fastened a small silver chain, which is by the noose or loop of
the brass C, to be fastened to the pannel under the middle of the cross near the
gap or scope for the motion ; and in the noose the chain to have a fastening, to
be taken up or let down at pleasure. — D, the roller or pulley, to be placed on
the other pannel opposite to the noose, and near the gap or scope between the
two pannels; over which roller the small chain on its return to the axis is to be
placed. — E, the axis on which the two rollers or pulleys B, b, are to be fastened,
and the two hands A, A, for the index.— F, the weight annexed to the larger
roller or pulley B, and the string or catgut to be moved, is to have the contrary
posture for motion to the small roller or pulley, on which the silver chain is
fastened : so that, as the shrinking of the pannel moves the axis one way, the
relaxing may give way to the moving the hands or axis the other way by the
power of the weights.

The circumference of the smaller pulley or roller Bb, on which the chain is
fastened, is to be no larger than just so much scope or distance as the two
pannels make by the extremity of their utmost swelling or shrinking ; and so

VOL. XI.]

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

349

one full revolution of the hand on the index may answer the greatest shrinking
and swelling in the year, and the distance between the two rollers or pulleys
fixed on the axis must be the thickness of the pannels ; so that the weight is to
play or move on the one side of the pannel, and the chain on the other, with-
out disturbance or rubbing against the sides of the pannel or the cross, between
which, in the middle they are to be placed out of sight.

The deal board should be of the iinest and straightest grained dram deal laid
to dry two or three years. And to know whether it be sufficiently seasoned,
take a small part of it, and weigh it in a nice pair of scales, and if you find the
weight not increased many grains in wet weather, nor decreased in dry, you
may then conclude it fit for your purpose.

An Occultatlon of Mars hy the MooUj Sept. \, N. S. 1676, observed at Dantzic,

by M. Hevelius. N° 129, p. 721.

Time by Pend.
Clock.

Names of fixed
Stars.

Alti-
tudes.

Time Correct,
by Altit.

Remarks.

h. m. s.

h.

m. s.

1 1 25

Swan's tail

57° 10'

1

0 24

Mars nearly as far distant

1 9 45

•

•

1

8 45

from the Moon's bright
limb, as Mount Porphy-
rites was from Mount

1 36 39

•

•

1

35 42

Mars covered by the Moon.

1 45 25

Swan's tail

51 17

1

44 7

2 47 54

3 19 50

Scheat in Peg.

45 3

2
3

aQ 29

18 19

Mars quite emerged, or end
of Occultation,

Mars was first covered by the moon about Mount Audus, thence proceeding
as it were through the Loca Paludosa of the moon, by Mount ^tna, below the
island Besbica, above the Pal us Acherusia, above Mount Corax, by the Palus
Maeotis, and a little above the isle Alopecia, and the very centre of the moon ;
and thence emerging at the great western lake. If it be asked how I could thus
exactly trace out the planet's passage behind the moon, and even that of her ob-
scure part; it proceeded from hence, that by those tubes of mine I could very
distinctly perceive the principal of the larger spots in the shaded part of the
moon ; so that I could observe very plainly, that Mars emerged near the middle
of Palus Maeotis.

350 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676,

The same Occultation observed at Greenwich, by Mr. Flaiiuteed-^ being jiug. 21,
O.S. before noon. N° 129, p. 723.

By several altitudes of the sun's lower limb, taken before the occultation, it
was found that the error of the clock was 4m. 55 s. too slow. Then, afternoon,
the sky being very clear, the following observations were taken :

Time by the Time

Clock. Correct

h. m. s. h. m. s. Distances, &c.

10 45 3 — 10 49 58. . Mars from the moon's bright limb. . 5125=42' S'^

11 35 57 — 11 40 52. . The same distance 1982=l6 18

11 57 31 — 12 2 26. . cjfromzen. ordif.alt.inf.limband(5. . 1912= 7 35
3 2 5 O — 12 9 55. . Planet no longer vis. to naked eye. .

,^ , . « fLiffht of A confounded with the

12 9 44 — 12 14 39. .^ ^ , v i_. * r

^ L moon slight. (^ from zenit. ... 1158= 5 AJ

12 10 3 — 12 14 58. . (5 quite covered by northern cusp. . 3475 = 17 20

12 24 58 — 12 29 53. . 41 in y froni the limb or cusp 3935=32 21

12 46 O — 12 50 55. . Diameter of the moon 5971=29 47

13 10 56 — 13 15 5\. . (S emerg. perhaps 4''' or 5'' sooner

13 13 29—13 18 24. . (5 from the northern cusp 3675 = 18 20

13 22 O — 13 26 55. . (( 's alt. 23°. Her diameter 5988=29 55

The same Occultation observed at Oxford, Aug. 21, 1676, P. M. by Mr. Halley.

N° 129, p. 724.

Correct time,
h, m. s. Distances, &c.

11 43 30. . Centre of ^ from the (['s nearest limb . . 7194. = 12' 40"

1 1 54 48. . The same 409 = 712

12 3 25. . Centre of (J from the (( 's north cusp 1118 = 1941

12 10 28. . The gibbous part of ^ touched the ([ 's limb

12 10 42. . (5 wholly covered; distance from the cusp . . 963 = 17 14

13 10 41 . . Centre of Mars emerged

13 12 45. . S dist. from (( 's northern horn 1018 = 17 55

13 52 35. . ([ 's alt. 31°. Her diameter observed ...... 1698 = 30 1

13 57 52. . (5 from the ([ 's north horn 2042 = 36 5

14 2 53. . (5 from the ^ 's south horn 2266 = 40 3

Having carefully considered the moon's parallaxes, in the observations of this

occultation at Pantzic and Greenwich, I find from the immersion the difference

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 351

of meridians between Greenwich and Oxford 4m. 57 s.; between Greenwich
^nd Dantzic, 1 h. 14m. 50 s. Also by the emersion the first of those differences
is found 4 m. 59 s.; and the latter 1 h. 14m. 41s. Which near agreement
shows the exactness of all the observations.

Extract of tivo Letters written hy Mr. John Beaumont, jun. of Stoney Easton, in
Somersetshire J concerning Rock-plants and their Growth, or Trochitce and En--
trochi. N** 129, p. 724.

Mr. Lister, N° 79 of the Trans, judges that shells found in stone quarries
were never any part of an animal; and gives this probable reason for it, because
quarries of different stone yield us quite different species of shells, not only one
from another, but from any thing in nature besides, which either the land, salt,
or fresh water yields, and though some seem of the same species, and much like
each other, yet there is difference enough to hinder them from being sampled
by any. I myself observed the same thing some years since, when I endea-
voured to satisfy myself of the process of nature in this way; and have now by
me several species of stones resembling shell-fish, which I gathered from plough-
ed fields and quarries, that are scarcely to be paralleled, as I judge, by all the col-
lections of sea-shells extant.

To examine this opinion of petrifaction further; perhaps it might seem rash
to deny a petrifaction of animals and vegetables, so many instances being alleged
on all hands by judicious persons attesting it; though I cannot say, that my own
observations have ever yet presented me with an ocular evidence of the thing: I
only find, that the thing supposed to be petrified, becomes first crusted over
with a stony concretion, and afterwards, as that rots away inwardly, the lapi-
descent juice insinuates itself by degrees into its room, and makes at last a firm
stone, resembling the thing in shape; which may lead some to believe it really
petrified. But though a real petrifaction were allowed in some cases, it would
not be rational to plead this in all the figured stones we see, on account of the
many grounds we have for the contrary. But I take these to be the chief rea-
sons which make some so ready to embrace so generally this conceit of petrifac-
tion, because they are prepossessed with an opinion against the vegetation of all
stones, and for that they think it impossible for nature to express the shapes of
plants and animals where the vegetative life is wanting, this being a faculty pecu-
liarly belonging to that soul, whereas they seem to err in both : for, as what has
been said concerning our stone-plant may suffice to prove their vegetation ; so
it will be as easy to show that nature can and does work the shapes of plants
and animals without the help of a vegetative soul, at least, as it is shut up in

352 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

common seeds and organs. To be satisfied of this, let them view the figura-
tions in snow; let them view those delicate landscapes, which are very frequently
found depicted on stones, carrying the resemblance of whole groves of trees,
mountains, and valleys, &c.; let them descend into coal mines, where generally
with us the clifts near the coal are all wrought with curious representations of
several sorts of herbs, some exactly resembling fern branches, and therefore by
our miners called the fern-branch clift; some resembling the leaves of sorrel, and
several strange herbs, which perhaps the known vegetable kingdom cannot paral-
lel; and though it could, here can be no colour for a petrifaction, it being only a
superficial delineation. The like may be said of animals, which are often found
depicted on stones; as all mineral histories will sufficiently inform them. Now
since here is no place for petrifaction, or a vegetative soul, we can only say, that
here is that seminal root, though hindered by the unaptness of the place to pro-
ceed to give these things a principle of life in themselves, which in the first gene-
ration of things made all plants, and I may say animals, rise up in their distinct
species; God commanding the earth and waters to produce both, as some plants
and animals rise up still in certain places without any common seed.

It seems to be a thing of a very difficult search, to find what this seminal
root is, which is the efficient cause of these figures. Many of the ancients
thought it to be some outward mover which wrought the figures in things for
some end; the Peripatetics rather judged it to be some virtue implanted in the
seed, and in substances having an analogous nature with the seed, &c. &c.

Thus, I have given you something of what I conceive, and practically know con-
cerningthe vegetation of rock-plants, endeavouring also to render some account
of those various figures which are found amongst minerals. I shall conclude with a
request to you concerning a thing, which may prove very much to the advantage of
those who are concerned in mineral adventures : it is a constant opinion among our
miners, that lead ore discovers itself by an oily smell, and that chiefly in a morn-
ing, a little before the rising of the sun, especially when some showers have
fallen in the night: this being so, I find two things in the Transactions, which
give me hopes that this way of discovery may be much improved by art: the first
is an intimation of a way shown by Sir William Petty, in his tract of double pro-
portions, whereby we may discover a smell at a great distance, and so conse-
quently the intenseness and remissness of it near at hand, wherein the chief
difficulty will consist; for, where these smells rise, they commonly diffiise them-
selves to a furlong's circumference, or more; so that we are more at a loss to
find exactly the place whence they rise, than to make a first discovery of them.
The second thing is the statical baroscope of Mr. Boyle, which I conceive may
give us some light of their true source, there being probably at that place a

VOL. XI.] PHIL0S01>HICAL TRANSACTIONS. 353

considerable variation in the pressure of the atmosphere by reason of the mineral-
steams which are there in the greatest abundance. I am not ignorant that some
strongly fermented beds of mineral earths and rusts, which are sometimes barren,
send forth a ranker smell than ore itself, which may now and then deceive us j
but because for the most part these are concomitants of ore, we may not look
upon the attempt as fruitless.

jin Account of some Books. N° 1 29, p. 742.

I. Ephemeridum Medico-physicarum Germanicarum Annus IV. et V, Annt
1673 et 1674, &c. cum Appendice: Franc, et Lip. 1676, 4to.

A continuation of the German Ephemerides, noticed in the 1st Vol. of this
Abridgement.

II. Nouvelle Methode en Geometrie pour les Sections des Superficies Co-
niques et Cylindriques, qui ont pour Base des Cercles, ou des Paraboles, des
Ellipses, et des Hyperboles ; par Ph. delaHire*, Parisien. A. Par. 1673, in 4to.

This author, in his first proposition, demonstrates all the proportions of the
lines, which coming from one point, or being parallel among themselves, and
meeting the sections, are cut by these sections, or by the lines that join the

• Philip de la Hire was bom at Paris, l640, and having learned drawing, perspective and gnomo-
nics, to prepare him for his father's profession, that of a painter, he was sent to Italy to improve and
perfect himself in that art. But his turn being only to mathematics, he devoted himself entirely ta
tliat science, in which he made great progress ; at the same time that he drew well, and was a good
landscape painter. On his return to France, he was sent along with M. Picard, into the northern
provinces, to take the measvu-ements of the country, in order to prepare a general map of the king-
dom, more accurate than had before been drawn, as well as for an extension of tlie meridian before
measured and begun by Picard. He became a member of the academy of sciences in l678; and he
had the honour of being professor of architectnre and of mathematics to the king. He died in 1718 at
78 years of age. The principal of his other numerous and excellent works were, 1. New Elements
of Conic Sections, 12mo. 2. A large Treatise on Conic Sections, in folio, l6S5, enlarged from the
book above described. 3. Astronomical Tables, 1702, in 4to. 4. School of Land Surveyors, I692,
in 12mo. 5. Treatise on Mechanics, 1^95, in 12mo. 6. Treatise on Gnomonics, or Dialling;
besides several papers printed in the memoirs of the Academy of Sciences.

M. de la Hire was a matliematician of the old school, who could never be induced to employ or
countenance some of the more modern improvements in analysis, particularly the method of fluxions
or differentials. He was nevertheless a sound mathematician, and well skilled in all the other branches
of the science, possessing a true taste for the ancient method of geometry, of which his large book
on conic sections is a striking instance, at a time when most of his countrymen had abandoned it,
In other respects too, it would seem, that la Hire had his peculiarites : it is said that he never passed
a windmill without pulling off his hat, in honour of the inventor.

His son, Gabriel Philip, who survived him only one year, practised physic with reputation, and
was also a member of the academy of sciences. He painted for his amusement, as well as studied
astronomy and the mathematical sciences; and for several years he undertook the care of calculating
ihe ephemerides, called the Connoissance des Temps.
VOL. JI, Z Z

$54 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOxVS. [aNNO I676.

contacts, or by other tangents : which he says comprehends a great part of the
propositions of Apollonius; and many others also of which he has not spoken :
which seems to him very easy to understand, forasmuch as it is nothing else but
a continual repetition of the application of one only line cut in three parts, which
line he calls cut harmonically; not that the parts taken separately are in harmo-
nical proportion, but that, by taking one of the extremes for one, and the
same with that of the middle for another, and the whole for the last, these
three lines should be in harmonical proportion.

After he had dispatched this proposition, he says that he was resolved to have
concluded his book with the properties and relations of the ordinates to the rect-
angles of the parts of their diameters; but that he found himself insensibly
engaged to add to it some other propositions of a more useful kind, and which
might easily be demonstrated by the first; and then, the propositions of the
ancients about the foci or puncta comparationis; and the demonstrations by
him given of them he affirms to be different from those of others^ that so this
work of his might not only be entire, but new.

He has also given a method of demonstrating the sections of the conic sur-
faces that have for base parabolas, ellipses and hyperbolas ; as also those of
cylindrical surfaces, which have for base the same curves as well as the circle.

III. Ophthalmographia, sive, Oculi ejusque partium Descriptio Anatomica.
Auth. Guil. Briggs, A. M.et Coll. Corp. Christi in Acad. Cantabr. Socio. Can-
tab. 167^, in 12mo.

A good description of the eye, accompanied with observations on vision.

A Declaration of the Council of the Royal Society, passed Nov. 20, l676i
relating to some passages in a late book of Mr. Hooke, entitled Lampas, &c.

Whereas the Publisher of the Philosophical Transactions, has made complaint
to the Council of the Royal Society, of some passages in a late book of Mr.
Hooke, entitled Lampas, &c. and printed by the Printer of the said Society,
reflecting on the integrity and faithfulness of the said Publisher in his manage-
ment of the intelligence of the said society : this council has thought fit to
declare in the behalf of the publisher aforesaid, that they knew nothing of the
publication of the said book; and further, that the said publisher has carried
himself faithfully and honestly in the management of the intelligence of the
Royal Society, and given no just cause of such reflections.

The Council having thus justified the publisher, he shall only add that part of
a letter, written to him by M. Huygens, the 20th of Feb. 1675, which relates
to the taking out a patent of his, the said M. Huygens's invention; and then let
the world judge of the postscriber's accusation, about an endeavour to defraud
him of his contrivance. The words of the said letter, Englished, are these:

VOL. Xr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 355

For the rest, Sir, if you believe that a privilege, (so he calls a patent,) in
England would be worth something, and that either the Royal Society or you
might make some advantage thereof, I willingly offer you all I there might
pretend to.

So that, if there was a desire in the publisher to take out a patent, it was for
no other contrivance, but M. Huygens's, formerly sent to the Royal Society, and
printed in N° J 12 of these Transactions.

More Observations of Mons» Tavernier^s Voyages \ continued from the last Tract.

N° 130, p. 731.

The second volume of these voyages treats of East-India, and the neighbour-
ing islands, in three books : the first is of the roads from Ispahan to Agra, and
from Agra to Dehli, and Gehanabat, where the court of the Great Mogul is at
present ; as also to the court of the king of Golconda, and to that of the king
of Visapour, and to divers other places of India. The second is a historical and
political description of the empire of the Great Mogul. The third, a narrative
of the religion of the Mahometans in those parts, and of that of the Indian ido-
laters; with an account of the author's voyage by sea from Surat to Batavia in
Java Major, and from thence into Holland; interspersing many particulars of
divers kingdoms of the East.

Among the many observables contained in this volume we take notice, that
there are to be met with, admirable jugglers and mountebanks in the road from
Surat to Agra by the way of Amadavat ; by some of whom the author affirms
he saw done what follows : they kindled a great fire, and in it heated some iron
chains red hot, which they laid about their bodies, without receiving any appa-
rent hurt. They took also a little piece of wood, and having fixed it in the earth,
they demanded of the spectators what kind of fruit they would have grow upon
it; it being answered, mangos; one of the jugglers covered himself with a linen
cloth, and stooped down to the ground five or six times. At which time one of
the spectators having placed himself so that he could observe what the juggler
did, saw, that with a razor he cut his flesh under his arm-pits, and with the
blood thence issuing, rubbed the piece of wood. Whereupon every time that
he raised himself from stooping, the planted stick of wood was visibly grown;
and at his third rising, branches came forth with buds; at the fourth, the tree
was covered with leaves: and at the fifth, blossoms were seen upon it.

That the author affirms to have given us an exact list of all the merchantable
commodities, furnished by the empire of the Great Mogul, and the two king-
doms of Golconda and Visapour, and other neighbouring states; and of all that
nature and art afford there : viz. silks ; various cloths, white and painted; cot-

zz 2

.336 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676.

jtons, spun and unspun; indigo, saltpetre, spices, cardamom, ginger, and
pepper ; diamonds, rubies, pearls, bezoar, musk, sugar; besides some drugs, thafe
indeed are found at Surat, but are brought thither for sale from other countries,
as sal ammoniac, borax, gum-lac, saffron, cummin, myrrh, frankincense, opium,
lignum aloes, liquorice, cassia, coffee. To all which he has annexed an account
of the cheats used in divers of these commodities, especially in the silks, cloths,
cottons, indigo.

That it is certain that the nut-meg tree is not planted, but the fruit of it sown
by birds, said to swallow the nutmegs whole, and voiding them whole without
digestion, covered with a viscous matter : whereupon they take root and grow
up to a tree. Again, that the birds of Paradise eating this fruit, are intoxi-
cated with it, and fall down dead on the place; whereupon emmets come and
eat off their legs, and other parts.

Of pearls he has this remarkable observation, viz. that he had one pearl-oyster
in his hand, that had ten pearls in it, though of different sizes; being, in his
opinion, bred in oysters, as eggs are in the belly of fowls.

That musk, when it is first drawn out of a certain bag of the musk-deer, is
like blood coagulated ; that most of it comes out of the kingdom of Boutan,
between 56 and 60 degrees northern latitude; but that Cochin-China also and
Tunquin furnish some quantity. Of the people of this kingdom he relates, that
they have had the use of muskets, cannon and powder for several ages; they
report that they now have pieces of cannon, on which are found cyphers, or
letters, demonstrating them to be above 500 years old. This is that very king-
dom, (says our author,) through which the ambassadors of Muscovy passed,
anno 1659, into China, taking their road all along the Great Tartary on the
north of Boutan: which ambassadors, if they had complied with the customs
and ceremonies of China, we might probably have at this day a beaten road by
land from Muscovy to China, by the north of Tartaria Magna, and much more
knowledge of the kingdom of Boutan ; and of some other countries, of which we
hardly know the names : a thing that might have proved a great advantage to ail
Europe.

That Bezoar is found among the contents within the stomach of certain
goats, that feed on a plant, the name of which the author says he has forgotten.
This plant is said to thrust out certain buttons, about which and the extremities
of the branches, eaten by these goats, the bezoar is formed in their belly. It is
added, that the bezoar takes its form according to that of the buttons and the
ends of the branches. The goat that breeds these stones, is, by his description^
a very fine and tall creature, having hair as fine as silk. *

* The Bezoar is a calculus concretion formed in one of the stomachs, (for they have several
stomachs,) of certain species of antelope.

vo

L. XI-I THILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^6f

Of the Lake of Mexico ; and a strange Sort of Rye, growing in some Parts oj

France. N° 130, p. 758.

The lake of Mexico has this of extraordinary and perhaps pecuhar to itself,
that part of its water is fresh, and the other part salt; whence it is believed to
be derived from two sources, the one of sweet water, and the other from som6
mineral and saline-earth, found in the hills through which this water passes,
being impregnated with the salt which is dissolved in its course: or if it have no
peculiar source, the bottom or the earth under the water must be full of salt:
which is confirmed by experience, much salt being made of it every day, of
which that city drives a great trade with remote parts, even the Philippines
themselves, whither it is transported in considerable quantities. That part of
the lake which is sweet is still and quiet ; the salt part is agitated and moved
according as the winds blow. The sweet water is very good and wholesome,
breeding plenty of little fish. That which is agitated is bitter salt, breeding no
fish at all. The sweet water is higher than the other, and falls into it. The
water of the salt part is seven leagues long, and as many broad, and above 22 in
compass. That of the fresh water is near as large, and the whole lake about 50
leagues in compass.

M. Perrault related to the Royal Academy of Paris, that travelling through
Sologne, he had been informed by some physicians and surgeons of that coun-
try, that the rye was there sometimes so corrupted, that those who did eat of
the bread which had much of this corrupted grain in it, were seized with a gan-
grene ; some in one part, some in another, some losing a finger, others a hand,
others a nose, &c. and that this gangrene was not preceded by any fever, nor in-
flammation, nor considerable pain; as also that the gangrened parts fell off of
themselves, without any need of separating them by any remedies or instru-
ments. That these grains of rye are black without, and pretty white within, afid
when they are dry, they are harder and closer than the natural good grain.
They have no ill taste. Some of them had hanging at their basis a substance of
a honey-taste and consistence. They become much longer in the ear than the
other, some of them being 13 or 14 lines long, and 2 lines broad, and at
times seven or eight of them are found in one ear.

Rye in this manner degenerates in Sologne, Berry, the country of Blaise and
Gastinois, and almost every where, especially in light and sandy land. It grows
plenteously in wet years, and most of all when after a rainy spring there follow
excessive heats. The bread made of the rye which contains some of this cor-
rupted grain, tastes like other bread. The rye thus corrupted produces its ef-
fects chiefly when new, yet not till it has been used a considerable time. These

358 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. FaNNO 1675.

effects are, to dry up the milk in women ; to cause sometimes malignant fevers
accompanied with drowsiness and raving; to breed the gangrene in the arms
but mostly in the legs, which it first seizes, as the scurvy does.

It is preceded by a certain numbness in the legs, on which follows a little
pain and some swelling, without inflammation, and the skin becomes cold and
livid. The gangrene begins in the centre of the part, and appears not at the
skin till a long while after.

The only remedy for this gangrene is to cut off the part affected. If it be
not cut off, it becomes dry and lean, as if the skin were glued over the bones,
and it is of a frightful blackness, without rottenness.

While the legs are drying up, the gangrene ascends to the shoulders. There
is yet no specific remedy against this evil. Though there is some hope of pre-
venting it by hot spirits and volatile salts. The orvietan and ptisan of lupins
do considerable service. Poor people only are generally subject to this dis-
temper.

M. Tuillier asserts, that in the year l630, which was fatal to the poor of the
countries subject to these evils, he being at Sully, and having understood by a
physician and surgeon, that the cornuted rye was the cause of the gangrenes
that were then very frequent, being desirous to satisfy himself, whether this
grain was indeed the cause thereof, he gave of it to several animals, and they
died of it.*

Observations on a Subterranean Fire in a Coal-inine near Neivcastle. By Dr.
Lucas Hodgson. May ^5, 1676. N^ 130, p. 762.

This subterraneous fire bears no analogy to other volcanos ; it increases or
decreases according to the subject it feeds on, which is for the most part a day-
coal, as they call it, that is, the upper seam of the coal, next exposed to the air,
so that you may light a candle at it in some places, in others it is some fathoms
deep, according as the day-coal heightens or deepens. There is no sal ammo-
niac, nor any thing like it to be found, except at the fire. There being such
a mixture of the steams of sal ammoniac and sulphur rising together in most
places, it is hard to distinguish them; for though the flowers of brimstone seem
to rise first, yet there is commonly a crust of sal ammoniac under them. The
milky substance is only found where the sal ammoniac and sulphur are totally
gone, and the acid part, or aluminous spirit of that white mass, will also fly off

* Ergot is the name given by the French both to the rye itself thus vitiated, and to the effects
which it is supposed to produce in those who eat bread made of it. In the Ivth vol. of the Transac-
tions, there is a further account of this disorder by Mons. Tissot, It is denominated by Sauvages
necrosis ustilaginea. The disease termed raphania is thought to originate from the same cause.

VOL. Xr.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 35^

by the increase of the fire, leaving a caput mortuum, dry, styptick, and as hard
as a stone; yet a pound of this mass, before the fire press too much upon
it, will nearly afford by solution, &c. half a pound of tolerable crystalline
allum. The neighbouring soil differs little from other grounds with us, having
neither common salt nor nitre in it. I have industriously observed the springs
that are near the fire, and find none of them that give the least suspicion of sal
ammoniac. The water that nms from the adjacent collieries is vitriolic, giving
as deep a tincture with galls as Scarborough spa, and differs in nothing from
the ordinary waters of collieries. The other springs are of ordinary use, con-
taining no mineral salts in them. — But I hope you will cease to wonder, that
coal should produce a volatile salt by the action of fire, seeing I have gathered
sal ammoniac from a burning brick-kiln, where nothing but clay and coal is
burnt together, and I hope none will expect the volatilie salt in the sal ammo-
niac from common clay. The reason that first prompted me to seek this salt
there, was, that the smell of the kiln did somewhat resemble that of the sub-
terranean fire. There is also a sort of mineral called slate, which is partly coal,
partly alum-stone, partly marcasite, which being laid up in heaps and burnt,
is used for hardening the coal-ways; on these heaps, whilst burning, I have
often gathered both brimstone and sal ammoniac.

As for the experiment of pouring cold water on the powdered marcasite, the
event was, that it produced a vitriolic water, but no heat.

Though it may seem incredible to some, that black coal should yield so white
a volatile salt, yet they that know that all volatile salts whatever may be freed
from their foetor and intense colour, by transmuting them into a sal ammoniac
by the mediation of an acid, as spirit of salt, spirit of vitriol, allum, &c. and
then subliming them till they be white, will cease to doubt at this matter. The
reason of which change, I presume, is, because, though these volatile salts
carry over always some of the foetid oil with them while in a state of volatility,
yet being thus in a manner fixed, the foetid oil must necessarily by force of fire
rise first, leaving the subsequent compound salt or sal ammoniac without
smell.

As to your inquiry concerning petrescent springs we have none near us.
There is indeed a cave some miles off^ from the roof of which hang large
lumps of petrified water, like icicles, some of them reaching down to the
ground like pillars; these icicles are good limestone, as I have tried. I shall
conclude when I have acquainted you with a spirit of sugar, of which a distiller
with us had a quantity; it seems to be the result of some anomalous fermenta-
tion, it is so strong that no man is able to smell at it in an open vessel without

S60 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I676,

being made almost breathless ; neither do 1 think the person that made it can
make it again.

The spirit of sugar, here mentioned, was drawn from bare sugar-water, which
is nothing but the water wherewith the molds, aprons, &c. are washed, fer»
men ted with the scum. And it was so exceedingly volatile, that it would
not be carried, but lost all its force in the carriage, though it was very well
stopped.

j^n Account of some Books. N" 130, p. 7^^'

I. Roberti Boyle, Nobilissimi Angli et Soc. Regiae dignissimi Socii, Opera
Varia. Gen. in 4to. 1677.

The works of this noble author having been already noticed in these Trans-
actions, at the several times when they came abroad singly, the editor on
looking over this Latin edition, shall only inform the reader; 1 . That this edi-
tion has been made without the consent and knowledge of the author. 2. That
the year in the frontispiece thereof is one and the same, as if the several books
contained in this Latin volume had been published in one year; and. that the
enumeration of the several treatises, made in the catalogue of this Latin edition,
is not according to the time wherein they were first printed.

n. An Account of several Travels through a great Part of Germany in four
Journeys, &c. By Edw. Brown, M. D. Fellow of the College of Physic of
London, and of the Royal Society. Lond. 1677^ in 4to.

This learned and curious author, having given a relation of some remoter
and less frequented countries of Europe in the year J 673, in this piece gives an
account of Vienna; describing also his journey unto that place from England,
by the Belgic Provinces and Germany ; as also his return from Vienna by Aus-
tria, Trans-Danubiana, Moravia, Bohemia, Misnia, Saxonia, unto Hamburg;
therein giving chiefly an account of the natural, artificial, and topographical,
observables ; with some of the customs and occurrences, which might be ac-
ceptable to the inquisitive reader, or serve as hints of further inquiry to such
persons as may hereafter travel into those parts.

IIL Caspari Bartholini, Thomas filii, Diaphragmatis structura nova, un^ cum
Methodo prseparandi Viscera, &c. Par. 1676, in 8vo.

A treatise on the structure of the Diaphragm, written when the author was
scarcely 22 years old. Subjoined is an account of his method of injecting the
viscera. The plates, as Haller has remarked, are very indifferent. This author
was son of Thomas Bartholin, of whom some biographical memoirs have been

rot. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 36l

given in the first vol. of our Abridgement. Like his father he arrived at great
honours, being appointed a counsellor of state, &c.

IV. Longitude found by Henry Bond,* Senior, Teacher of the Mathematics.
London, 1676, in 4to.

The attempt and pains of the author of this book are certainly very com-
mendable, as he endeavours to explain the use of the inclinatory needle, and in
so doing makes it known to the world that, as both the variation and inclina-
tion of the needle were found out first of all in this nation by two Englishmen,
Mr. Robert Norman and Mr. William Burrows; he has now made it his busi-
ness to apply it to a use, formerly, for ought we know, not thought of, viz.
to find the longitude.

Meantime, the editor is desired here to take notice of a mistake committed
in this book, viz. in the page printed next after the epistle to the reader, where
it is said, that this treatise has been examined by six commissioners appointed
by the king, and the truth of it affirmed to his majesty; whereas of the six per-
sons there named, the Right Hon. the Lord Viscount Brouncker, chancellor to
her Majesty, P.R.S. declares that he never so much as saw this treatise before
it was printed, nor was ever present at any of the meetings of the other com-
missioners ; the quality of the report of whom concerning this matter, the rea-
der will doubtless be acquainted with in due time.

V. The Royal Almanack. By N. Stephenson, one of his Majesty's Gunners.
London, 1677, in 12mo.

This almanack is a very useful diary of the true places of the sun, moon, and
other planets; their rising, southing, and setting; as also of high water at
London-bridge, with rules to serve other places after the new theory of tides,
and directions of Sir Jonas Moore. To which are added the eclipses, with a
table of equations for the regulating curious pendulum clocks and movements,
to the sun: likewise a table of the sun's right ascension in time for every day
at noon, and of thirty of the most notable fixed stars; together with the moon's
and the other planets' appulses to the fixed stars, for the meridian of London,
in the year J677 ; as also a transit of Mercury under the sun, calculated for

* Mr. Heruy Bond was an intelligent mathematician and teacher of navigation, whose table of
the variation of the magnetic needle was published in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 40, p. -^82,
vol. i. of this Abridgement. Sir Charles Cavendish, in an original letter of his from Antwerp, Nov.
13, l648, to Mr. John Pell, then professor of mathematics at Breda, mentions Mr. Bond as " an
old mathematician at London, who speaks very meanly of himself, and yet he found an easy and
short demonstration of that proposition concerning spherical triangles, which Mr. Oughtred demon-
strated first, who told me Mr. Bond's demonstration was shorter."

VOL. II. 3 A

36^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 676-7.

October 28, next. All done with great care and pains at his Majesty's com-
mand.

New Experiments on the Superficial Figures of Fluids, especially of Liquors
contiguous to other Liquors. By R. Boyle, Esq. N° 131, p. yjd.

What has been said about the pores of liquors may be somewhat illustrated
or confirmed, if I subjoin to it some of the trials I have made about the sur-
faces of fluids contiguous to other fluids. For this being a neglected subject,
and the little that has been said about it consisting of a few slight and casual ob-
servations, that seem to have been rather presented to us, not to say obtruded
upon us, than designedly made by us; I many years ago thought it might be
worth while to spend some hours on experiments of this sort ; which I was es-
pecially induced to do, because I think one may probably enough suppose, that
in the tract of the universe that is yet known to us, there is not the hundredth,
perhaps not the thousandth part, that is formed into solid bodies, such as the
earth, the moon, and the other planets; and consequently all the rest is made
up of celestial fluids and the atmospheres of solid globes, which, for ought we
know, though not manifestly differing in transparency, may be disterminated
by distinct surfaces. So that, to observe and consider the effects of the con-
gruity and incongruity, that liquors, or such fluid bodies, as directly or other-
wise fall under sensible observation, have when they are contiguous to each
other, or to the surfaces of solid bodies, may not only improve what is yet
known about the ascension of liquors in small pipes, but may perhaps serve to
illustrate the formation of those great masses of matter, of which the Divine
Architect has framed the mundane globes, and some other considerable parts of
the universe, especially if we admit the Cartesian hypothesis, that the sun and
all the fixed stars are fluid bodies.

The cause why water in narrow pipes ascends above the level of the surround-
ing water having been already inquired into by some ingenious men, and parti-
cularly by Mr. Hooke, I shall not now treat on that subject, nor mention what
I have tried about it ; but shall rather remark, that because I suspected that the
concave figure, which may be observed in the surface of water included in
slender pipes, may, at least in great part, depend on its relation to the conti-
guous fluid, which commonly is the air, I thought fit to try whether this con-
cave figure would not be altered by substituting another liquor in the room of
the air; and accordingly having procured a strongly alcalizat menstruum, viz.
that made of fixed nitre, dissolved by the moisture of a cellar, into a tube of
glass, sealed at one end, and not quite a quarter of an inch in bore, that the

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ' 363

cavity, which in a great breadth would seem less deep, might be the more con-
spicuous; we gently poured on it some highly dephlegmed spirit of wine, whiph
we knew would not mix with it, but swim above it, land presently we found the
figure of the surface of the lower liquor changed, and the cavity quite de-
stroyed; the surface that seemed, as it were, common to the two contiguous
liquors, appearing flat or horizontal. And such a level superficies we had by
putting those two liquors together in a much wider glass.

We found also, that by employing oil of turpentine instead of spirit of wine,
the liquor almost totally lost its cavity. But if, instead of deliquated tartar, we
put common water into the pipe, we found this liquor to retain its concave
surface, though we put to it some oil of turpentine, and left it to rest on the
water a good while. Having provided some pure oil of gum guaiacum, which
is heavier than water, and poured a little of it into a slender tube, the upper
superficies of it became concave; almost, if not altogether, like that which
water would have had in the same place. But when I put a little water upon
this oil it presently changed the figure of its surface, which became visibly,
though not very much, protuberant or convex.

And as this oil, though heavier than water, is not so heavy as deliquated salt
of tartar, I thought fit to try, whether the phenomenon would not be diff'erent
upoii the contact of those two liquors; and accordingly having put some oil of
tartar into the slender pipe, and some drops of the oil of guaiacum to it, this
liquor did not manifestly alter the concave figure of the surface of the liquor
alcali, as the oil of turpentine had done; and having warily poured a little water
on the oil of guaiacum, the upper superficies of it changed presently from a
concave figure to a convex; so that this oil, in the midst of the other two li-
quors, appeared like a little red cylinder, which, instead of having circular
bases, was protuberant at both ends, but more at that which touched the oil of
tartar.

To vary a little the experiment, I put some essential oil of cloves into a new
slender pipe, and having observed it to be somewhat concave at the top where
it was contiguous to the air, we caused a little common water, perhaps a quarter
of a spoonful or less, to be put to it, and found the surface of this oil also to
become tumid. And since this liquor, as well as the forementioned oil of guai-
acum, though it were so heavy as to sink in water, would not do so in deli-
quated salt of tartar, we put into another slender pipe first some of this last
named liquor, then some of the aromatic oil, and lastly a little common water;
by which means we found, that the little cylinder of oil did, like that of the
oil of guaiacum, appear convex at both ends; but was unlike it in one circum-
stance, that the oil of cloves appeared more convex at the upper end, where it

3 A 2

364 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676-7.

was contiguous to the water, than at the lower, that rested on the surface of the
oil of tartar.

Having made these trials to alter, by another contiguous fluid than the air,
the concave superficies of water and some aqueous liquors, I proceeded to try
whether a change would not likewise be made on the convex figure of the sur-
face of quicksilver included in the like slender glasses; and accordingly having
taken one that was much longer, but of the like bore with the former, we put ^
into it a small quantity of quicksilver, and having observed how the upper su-
perficies swelled in the middle above the level of the parts where it touched
the glass, we poured some water upon it, and found a manifest and considerable
depression of the surface, though the protuberance was not quite suppressed.

This phenomenon having been for greater security several times repeated, I
thought fit to try, what variation would be made by the greater or less height
of the water incumbent on the mercury. And sometimes it seemed that when
the aqueous cylinder was much longer, the depression of the mercurial surface
was somewhat greater. But this did not so constantly happen, but we often
observed, that though a very little water sufficed by its contact to make, in the
judgment of the eye, a manifest abatement of the protuberance of the quick-
silver, yet it had not the same effect on that ponderous fluid that it had when,
being increased almost as high as the length of the pipe would permit, a greater
weight of it was incumbent on the mercury.

Because the common atmospherical air we breathe is a fluid body abounding
with grosser particles, and is by divers philosophers probably supposed to be
much more dense and heavy than the aethereal substance, that makes the other
part of the atmosphere; I thought fit to try for their sakes, whether the super-
ficial figure of liquors would be altered by having the contiguous air withdrawn
from about them, and so being left to be touched by the purer ether without
it; and accordingly having conveyed into one of our pneumatical receivers a
couple of such slender pipes as have been already described, one of them fur-
nished with common water, and the other with quicksilver, we caused the com-
mon air to be pumped out, without observing any sensible change in the con-
cave figure of the water, but as for the quicksilver I knew not what to conclude
about it. For having repeated the trial twice or thrice, the mercury sometimes
seemed manifestly to swell and be more protuberant on the exhaustion of the
receiver, than when it was put in. But that which yet kept me doubtful was,
that I observed, that on the withdrawing of the air's pressure on the quicksilver,
there appeared in it some little bubbles, which I feared we had not been able
altogether to free it from, and which might be suspected to have some interest
in the phenomenon. I shall only add, that we conveyed into our receiver a

TOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 366

clear chemical oil, that was heavier than water, and whilst it was contiguous to
it, it had not a concave but a convex surface; and having placed the pipe
furnished with both liquors in the pneumatical receiver, we pumped out the air,
without finding that the oil sensibly altered its protuberant surface, as neither
did the water lose the concave figure of its upper surface.

When clouds are condensed into rain, and lower aggregates of vapours into
dew, it is supposed to be obvious, that the drops of those meteors do, in their
passage through the air, acquire a round figure; and when we shake oil into
water, the portions of the former fluid, during the little time they remain
distinct, are found to be globular. But these phaenomena are too few, and too
transient, to afford any considerable observation of the figures of fluid bodies,
especially if they be quiescent, and every way encompassed by other fluids.
Wherefore I thought fit to try what I could do with chemical liquors unapt for
mingling, to produce phasnomena that may last long enough to allow us to ob-
serve them attentively, and in some cases to vary them. — For this purpose I
first took fixed nitre, or which is analogous to it, salt of tartar, resolved per
deliquium into a transparent liquor, and having filled a clear phial half full with
this, I poured on it a convenient quantity of vinous spirit exactly rectified, that
there might be no phlegm to occasion an union between the two liquors, which
ought, as ours did, to retain distinct surfaces, and speedily regain them though
the glass were well shaken. Then having found, by a trial formerly mentioned,
that common oil of turpentine, if employed in a competent quantity, will not
totally, and much less will readily, dissolve in spirit of wine ; and also having
observed, that if this spirit of wine be exquisitely dephlegmed, the oil though a
chemical one, will not swim on it, but sink in it; I warily let fall some drops of
the oil into the spirit, and had the pleasure to see that they fell towards the
bottom of the glass, till their descent was stopped by the horizontal surface of
the alcalizat liquor of fixed nitre. And because my design was chiefly to ob-
serve the superficial figure of a fluid encompassed by other fluids without touch-
ing any solid body, I shall here take notice of the chief phaenomena that were
produced of that kind, without staying to inquire into the causes or the con-
sequences of them.

1. If the oily drops were but small, they seemed to the eye exactly enough
spherical. For the oil differing but little in specific gravity from the spirit of
wine, the drops did but just touch the surface of the subjacent alcali ; and the
same drops being but small, their own weight was not great enough visibly to
depress them, and prevent that roundness which the pressure of the ambient
spirit, or their own viscosity endeavoured to give them. — 2. If an aggregate of
drops were considerably larger than those newly mentioned, it would then

366 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676-7.

manifestly pass upon the alcalizat liquor as upon a floor, and appear somewhat
elliptical ; the weight of the upper parts depressing the drops, and making the
horizontal diameter somewhat longer than the transverse. — 3. If a yet greater
portion of oil were let fall on the heavy liquor, it would for a pretty while ap-
pear in the form of a somewhat imperfect hemisphere, or some other large
section of a sphere, the lower part being cut off, by the horizontal surface of
the deliquated salt. — 4. But if the quantity of oil were not too great, it was plea-
sant to observe, that though at first putting in it perhaps spread itself over the
subjacent liquor, and lie as it were flat upon it; yet by slow degrees it would be
crowded together into a figure of a lesser surface, and consequently less hindering
the motions of the vinous liquor. For by the action of this spirit, the oil would
by degrees be raised above the surface of the fluid nitre, and be reduced to the
figure, either of half a globe, or of a greater segment of a globe, or even of an
imperfect ellipsis, according as the bulk or weight of the oil made it more or
less apt to resist the action of the ambient spirit. — 5. Though these globules or
portions of oil did often readily mingle, when they touched one another, yet
divers times also we observed, that having warily approached them, we were
able to make them touch without mingling; as if some odd subtile matter, that
the eye could not discern, interposed, to keep them unconfounded. Insomuch
that we have with pleasure made them so far bear against one another's surfaces,
as manifestly to press them inwards, though being parted they would presently
resume their former figure : which circumstance suggested to me suspicions,
that I cannot now stay to name. But in case any of these oily portions came
by a more pressing contact to be united, they would then alter the figures they
had whilst separate, and take others, suitable to the bulk of the aggregate. —
6. When a large portion of oil rested on the saline liquors; if then the ambient
spirit were moderately and warily agitated, it was not unpleasant to observe the
various figurations, which the convex and protuberant part of the mutilated
globe would be put into by these shakes, without any visible solution of con-
tinuity, or considerable motion of the whole body, which would very quickly
recover its former figure. Though if the agitation were too strong, some por-
tions would be quite broken off, and presently turned into little globes.

I tried to produce another phenomenon that would not have been unpleasant,
by putting together, in a pretty large vessel with other liquors, two oils, which
first by reason of the oleaginous nature wherein they agreed, might exactly
mingle and make a compounded liquor; and then by reason of their being one
heavier, and the other lighter in specie than water, might by this liquor be
again separated, and include between them the liquor that had divided them.
But I found that the oils, being once united, would not be easily parted, but

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 36/

according to the prevalency of the lighter or heavier ingredient in the mixture,
the compounded oil would almost totally either emerge to the top of the water,
or He beneath the bottom of it; I say almost totally, because some parts of the
oil, which was not perhaps all uniformly mixed, did not keep in a body with the
rest; but either was separated from the mass in the form of globules, or else
sticking to the side of the glass, had the other part of its superficies, which was
contiguous to the water, very variously figured, according as the bulk and de-
gree of gravity of the adhering oil and other circumstances happened to deter-
mine. And it is chiefly on account of this various and odd figuration of our
mixture, that I here mention this trial.

These are some of the phienomena I observed in oil of turpentine, when it
was environed only with fluids; but, when permitted to be contiguous to the
inside of the glass, and so to fasten part of its surface to a solid, the greater
part of the surface which remained exposed to one or both of the contiguous
liquors, would partly by their action, and partly by the gravity of the oil itself,
be put into figures so various, and sometimes so extravagant, that it was much
more pleasant to behold them than it would be easy to describe them ; which
therefore I shall not here attempt to do.

When the oil of tartar or nitrous alcali, happened to be very clear and colour-
less, I have sometimes made highly rectified spirit of wine float upon it, so that
in most positions the phial seemed to have in it but one uniform liquor.

Taking deliquated alcali, made of nitre and tartar, and deeply tinged with
cochineal ; and that the liquors might not only be heterogeneous, but as differ-
ing in gravity and density as we could make them, we poured on it a peculiar
kind of oil lighter than spirit of wine, and holding the plain where the two
liquors were contiguous in a convenient position, in respect of the light and the
eye, I observed it to make a strangely vivid reflection of the incident beams of
light : so that this physical surface, which was flat, looked almost like that of
quicksilver ; and the bright figure of the flame of a candle was strongly re-
flected almost as from a close specular body.

To these phaenomena I shall add another, which is, that though pure spirit of
wine be so thin a liquor, and our oil is so light as to swim upon it ; yet I found
the confining surface very strongly reflexive. — I found also that some other
essential oils, and particularly an unsophisticated oil of lemons, did with our
tinged alcali, afford most of the same phaenomena; but not so brisk a reflection:
I say most chiefly, because with spirit of wine these subtile oils, as I formerly
noted, v^^ill readily be confounded.

368 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I676-7.

A Letter from Christianus Adolphus Balduinus* to Mr. Oldenburg, Secretary of
the Royal Society. Translated from the Latin. N^ 131, p. 788.

I should immediately have acknowledged the favour of the letter you wrote
me last year, had I not thought it right to wait until I had perfected the method
of preparing my phosphorus. This I have but lately done; and I now send you
a specimen thereof, inclosed in a gilt silver box ; which I request you to have
the goodness to offer, with all humility and respect on my part, as a small pre-
sent to his Majesty, as founder and patron of your Society; and to the illustri-
ous President, Council, and Members thereof This phosphorus contains the
real spark, yea the most secret soul (imo secretissima anima) of the fire and
light of nature, consequently the innate and invisible fire of philosophers ; at-
tracting magnetically the visible fire of the sun, and afterwards emitting and
diffusing in the dark the splendor of the same : This happens from hence, viz.
that the signature of the sun is contained in that universal magnet from whence
this phosphorus is prepared ;-}- as indeed is sufficiently apparent from the ac-
companying representation of the phenomenon, which lasts several days. J
But although I have thus succeeded in getting possession of the universal mag-
net, I shall not desist from the farther prosecution of my chemical labours, as I
am in expectation ere long of deriving from this source still greater and more
important discoveries; concerning all which I shall not fail to transmit an ac-
count to your illustrious Society, as soon as I shall have completed my experi-
ments.

Hayn, Sept. 1, 1676.

Note hy Mr. Oldenburg. — ^This present was according to the tenor of this

* Christian Adolphus Baldwin was a magistrate of the town of Hayn or Grossenhayn in Saxony,
and was much devoted to the then fashionable pursuit of alchemy. For some purpose or other he
had dissolved a quantity of chalk in nitrous acid, and evaporated the compound to drj'ness in a strong
heat. On breaking the glass retort in order to get at the residuum, some fragments thereof fell upon
the floor of the laboratory, and remained there until the next day ; when they attracted the notice of
our alchemist by their luminous appearance in the dark. Thus was the discovery of this chemical
phenomenon wholly accidental. — ^This phosphorus is a nitrate of lime. Besides the above letter, a
communication concerning it was published in the Ephemerid. Natur. Curios, for 1674- ; but the most
ample account of it is given in the author's treatises entitled Aurura superius et inferius Aurae
superioris et inferioris hermeticum j et Phosphorus hermeticus sen Magnes Luminaris, l673 et 1675.

f In the above reflections we have a tolerable specimen of the absurd mode of philosophizing among
the chemical or rather alchemical writers at this period of time. — Note by the Translator.

+ This phenomenon exhibits, in a glass vessel, various figures of the sun, some greater some less,
which the substance employed by the author assumed, to the no small diversion of the spectators. —
Original.

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3^9

letter, made to his Majesty, and afterwards to the Royal Society; it fully
justified the generous presenter in the experiment, made before them both, at
several times; and that not only by day-light, even when the weather was
gloomy and misty, but also by the flame of a candle.

An Account of three Books. N° 131, p. 790.

I. Clavis Philosophiae Naturalis, Aristotelica Cartesiana, Editio secunda,
aucta OpusculisPhilosophicis varii Argumenti; quibus Errores Scholarum passim
deteguntur, ac Veritas Philosophiae, quam Cartesianam vocant confirmatur.
Auth. Johanne de Raei, Phil, in lUustri Athenaeo Amstelod. Prof. prim. '
Amstelod. Anno 1677, in 4to.

As the first edition of this book, printed many years since, contained chiefly
six dissertations, viz. concerning 1. Vulgar and philosophical knowledge: —
^. Philosophical principles in general: 3. The nature of body: 4. The origin of
motion, together with an appendix, giving an account of .Aristotle's opinion of
the first mover : 5. The communication of motion, and the action of bodies
upon one another : 6. The subtile ethereal matter ; so this second edition is
enlarged with seventeen discourses, which are chiefly concerning logic, meta-
physics, with some parts of the Cartesian and Aristotelian philosophy, now
long since exploded.

II. Nouvelle Science des Temps, ou Moyen general de concilier les Chro-
nologues; par le S. Menard, Seigneur d'Iserne. A Par. in 12mo.

There being found so little certainty among chronologists, this author endea-
vours to reconcile them, by proposing four principles, whereby he pretends to
make it out, that they may be made to agree together, in respect of the several
aeras and epochs of time.

III. England's Improvement by Sea and Land : to outdo the Dutch without
Fighting : to pay Debts without Money : to set at Work all the Poor in Eng-
land with the Growth of our own Lands: to prevent unnecessary Suits in Law,
with the Benefit of a Voluntary Register : Directions where vast Quantities of
Timber may be had for the building of Ships : with the Advantages of making
the Great Rivers of England Navigable : Rules to prevent Fires in London,
and other Great Cities : with Directions how the several Companies of Handi-
crafts-men in London may always have cheap Bread and cheap Drink. By
Andrew Yarranton, Gent, in 4to.

This author, it seems, has discovered the mysteries of trade universally for all
parts of England. And he detected the mysteries of iniquity, how some wealthy
merchants and overbusy factors hinder trade and our staple manufactures, for
private lucre, to the great damage of their own native country. He advises

VOL. II. 3 B

3^0 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1676'7.

good remedies; and proposes what trades are proper to be advanced in the
several parts of England ; how to be there advanced ; and what the peculiar con-
veniences.

Thus he runs through all the intrigues of trade, noting the secret abuses and
obstacles; and offering genuine remedies, confirmed by the experience of
foreign nations, large territories and principalities.

^ Continuation of Mr. Boyle's Experiments published in the last Number of the

Transactions. N° 132, p. 799-

On pouring into a slender phial, more than half filled with common water,
that had been a little warmed, a little essential oil of aniseeds, its upper surface
became somewhat concave, as that of the water was; but the lower surface sur-
rounded by the water was very convex, appearing almost of the figure of a large
portion of a sphere. This being done, the phial was stopped, and suffered to rest
for some time in a cold place, by which means the water continuing fluid as be-
fore, the oil of aniseeds was found coagulated in a form approaching to that it
had whilst in a fluid state.

And it was worth observing, how great a difference there was between the
dull reflection it made when it was coagulated, and the fine reflection it had
made whilst fluid. The latter of which reflections brought into my mind, how
vivid the reflective power of some fluids is, in comparison of that of the genera-
lity of solid bodies, of which there is scarcely any, if there be any at all, that is
observed to have a stronger reflection than clean quicksilver ; and yet I have
sometimes found, that even this may be increased by the addition of a liquor.
For having observed that quicksilver and rectified petre oleum are, the former
of them the heaviest, and the latter the lightest of all the visible fluids ; and
having also observed the latter of them to be considerably reflective, I had the
curiosity to try among other things that related to them, the following experi-
ment. Some distilled quicksilver being put into a small phial, and held in such
a posture, that the incident light was strongly reflected to my eye, I slowly put
to it some petroleum, which being well rectified was very clear ; and observed,
that as this liquor covered the quicksilver, there was at the imaginary plain
where they both met, a brisker reflection than the quicksilver alone had given
before.

On putting a competent quantity of a resinous or gummy substance, that
looked like high coloured amber, but was easy to melt, into a deep round glass
with a wide mouth, and holding it by the fire in a moderate warmth, till it was
brought to a fluid state; we then transferred it into a pneumatical receiver, and
having caused the air to be pumped out by degrees, we found that store of

VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3/1

bubbles appeared at the top of the liquor, and made there a copious froth, many
of them being, by reason of the viscosity of the fluid, very large, and divers ot
them, because of the nature and texture of it and the thinness of the films,
exhibiting the colours of the rainbow. When this substance had resumed its
consistent form, there were intercepted between the upper and the lower sur-
faces of it, some large bubbles which had a considerable reflection.

Water being so considerable a body here below, I thought it would be worth
while to endeavour to observe its surface when contiguous to other fluids than
air, and if possible, when surrounded by them. For though it is taken for
granted, that the falling drops of rain are spherical, yet their descent is so swift,
both by reason of their gravity in respect of the air, and the height from whence
they fall, that I fear men have rather supposed than observed that their figure is
spherical ; which will be the more questionable, if it be true, which is com-
monly thought, that hail is but rain frozen in its passage through the air. Now
the surface of water may have different figures, according as it is totally incom-
passed with heterogeneous fluids, or, as it is only in some places contiguous to
one or more of them. In the former case it is not easy to make an observation,
because there are not any two liquors that will not mingle either with one
another or with water. Having cautiously therefore conveyed into some oil of
cloves, some portions of common water of different sizes, taking care as far as
we could, that they might not touch one another; by which means, the oil be-
ing transparent, and yet a little coloured, it was easy to observe, that the smaller
portions of water were so near totally environed with the oil, that they were
reduced into almost perfect globes ; those portions that were somewhat larger,
as about twice the size of a pea, would be of a figure somewhat approaching to
that of an ellipsis ; and those portions that were yet somewhat larger, though
they seemed to be sunk almost totally beneath the oil, yet they held to it by a
small portion of themselves, and their surface was easily enough distinguishable
from that of the oil. These larger portions of immersed water, being almost
wholly environed with the other liquor, were by it reduced into a round figure,
which was commonly somewhat elliptical, but more depressed in the middle
than that figure requires. But all this is to be understood of those portions of
water, that touched only the oil and the air: for those that touched each other
without mingling, and much more those that adhered more or less to the sides
of the glass, had their surfaces too differingly and irregularly figured to be here
attempted to be described.

Having put into a slender pipe a little oil of cloves, and upon this some oil of
turpentine, that so the water might both above and beneath be touched by hete-
rogeneous liquors, the oil of cloves was not manifestly tumid at the top, nor the

3 B 2

372 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1676-7.

lower surface of the oil of turpentine, for the upper was concave, very convex;
for somewhat convex it was downwards. And from this it will be easy to con-
clude the figure of the cylindrical portion of water intercepted between these
two oils.

Having taken oil of aniseeds, thawed by a gentle warmth, and common water,
and having put them together in a conveniently shaped glass, they were suffered
to stand in a cold place till the oil was coagulated ; which done, it was parted
from the water, and by the roughness of its superficies, showed that when its
parts were no longer agitated, or whatever other agent or cause it were, to
which it owed its fluidity, then the contiguous water grew unable to inflect, or
otherwise place them after the manner requisite to constitute a smooth surface.
And what happened to that part of the oil's surface that was touched by the
water, happened also to that which was contiguous to the air; save that the as-
perity of the last surface was differing from the other. But I have often observed,
that the upper surface of the oil of aniseeds, when this liquor comes to be coa-
gulated by the cold air, was far from smooth, being variously asperated by many
fiaky particles, some of which lay with their broad, and others with their edged
parts upwards.

An inequality and ruggedness of superficies I have also observed in water, on
covering it with chemical oil of juniper, and exposing it in very cold weather;
though the oil continued fluid, yet the water, being frozen, had no longer a
smooth superficies, as when in its liquid state it was contiguous to the oil. And
the like inequality, or rather a greater, we observed in the surface of water
frozen, which had chemical oil of turpentine swimming on it; yet a no less, if
not a much greater roughness, may be often observed in the surfaces of
divers liquors that abound with water, when those liquors being frozen, their
surfaces have an immediate contact with the air. I shall here add, that having
purposely caused a strong and blood red decoction of the soot of wood to be
exposed in a large glass, in a very cold night, I was more pleased than surprised,
to find in the morning a cake of ice, curiously figured, being full of large flakes,
shaped almost like the broad blades of daggers, but neatly fringed at the edges.
And these figures seemed to be as it were imbossed, being both to the eye and
the touch raised above the horizontal plain or level of the other ice.

This may be observed in the best sort of what the chemists call regulus martis
stellatus, where the figure of a star, or a figure somewhat like that of the decoc-
tion of soot lately mentioned, will frequently appear embossed on the upper
superficies of the regulus ; and such a raised figure I have on a mass of regulus
made of antimony without mars. But if to those two bodies copper be also
skilfully added, the superficies will be often adorned with new figures according

TOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 373

to circumstances : though the most usual I took notice of was that of a net, that
seemed to cover the surface of the compounded regulus.

Account of Two Boohs. N** 132, p. 808.

I. Palaeologia Chronica: a Chronological Account of Ancient Time, in three
parts: Didactical, Apodictical, Chronical. By Robert Cary, LL.D. Devon,
London, l677jinfol.

The design of this elaborate work seems to be, to determine the just interval
of time between the great epocha of the creation of the world, and that other of
the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian, in order to the assignment
of such particular time, wherein persons and actions of old had their existence.
For the performance of which, the learned author divides this his book into
three main parts.

In the first he treats not only of his measure in general, which is the year, and
its parts ; but also of the Julian year in particular, by him esteemed the fittest for
his use. Having showed the use of this period, he adds the method of reducing
the years of other reckonings to the Julian year, and to that of the Julian period:
as that of the Egyptian or Nabonassaraean ; that of the city of Rome; the
Grecian and Jewish year, &c.

In the second part, are laid down the two bases of Chronography, viz. astro-
nomical observations, and historical tradition: of which the former may be con-
sidered as certain and demonstrative; the latter must be distinguished according
to the historians, as they are with us more or less creditable, or more or less
consonant with others of good credit. Here occurs first, a thesaurus of astrono-
mical phaenomena, or a table of eclipses and other celestial appearances, with
the time in which they were observed, according to the writings of historians and
mathematicians. Next, creditable memorials of the succession of princes and
rulers, serving to direct these inquiries, as is that considerable astronomical
canon deduced from Nabonassar to Antoninus Pius, under whom Claud. Ptolo-
maeus, the famous Egyptian mathematician flourished.

Having thus in many places of the world searched out the originals of govern-
ment, by following the line of their successions ordine retrograde ; he passes in
the last place to survey the reckonings of the Holy Land, the Jews and Hebrews
of old time, according to those ancient records, the holy scriptures ; that so if
he can obtain this end of his labours, which is, to see a good agreement between
these several lines, viz. of the Gentile draught, and of the Jewish protraction,
men may sit down well content therewith, as having mastered a matter of no
small importance.

374 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677,

The third and last part, which is canonical, as the first has been didactical, and
the second apodictical, is drawn much after the pattern of Helvicus the Ger-
man chronologer, as is owned by the author himself, which is one of the most
comprehensive and best forms that is extant.

II. A Touchstone for Gold and Silver Wares, or a Manual for Goldsmiths,
and all other Persons, whether Buyers, Sellers, or Wearers of any Manner of
Goldsmith's work, &c. By W. B. of London, Goldsmith, in 8vo.

END OF VOLUME ELEVENTH OP THE ORIGINAL.

Some Agrestic Observations and Advertisements , from Dr. John Beale, communi-
cated to the Editor. N° 133, p. 81 6. Fol. XII.

These observations are of no use now.

Observations on Animalcula seen in Rain, Well, Sea, and Snow -ivater; as also'
in Pepper-water. By M. Leewenhoeck. N° 133, p. 821.

In the year 1675, I discovered very small living creatures in rain water, which
had stood but few days in a new earthen pot, glazed blue within. This invited
me to view this water with great attention, especially those little animals appear-
ing to me ten thousand times less than those represented by M. Swammerdam^
and by him called water-fleas, or water-lice, which may be perceived in the water
with the naked eye.

The first sort I several times observed to consist of 5, 6, 7? or 8 clear glo-
bules, without being able to discern any film that held them together, or con-
tained them. When these animalcula or living atoms moved, they put forth
two little horns, continually moving. The space between these two horns was
flat, though the rest of the body was roundish, sharpening a little towards the
end, where they had a tail, near four times the length of the whole body, of
the thickness, by my microscope, of a spider's web ; at the end of which appeared
a globule of the size of one of those which made up the body. These little
creatures, if they chanced to light on the least filament or string, or other such
particle, were entangled therein, extending their body in a long round, and en-
deavouring to disentangle their tail. This motion of extension and contraction
continued a while; and I have seen several hundreds of these poor little crea-
tures, within the space of a graip of gross sand, lie fast clustered together in a
few filaments.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 375

I also discovered a second sort, of an oval figure ; and I imagined their head
to stand on the sharp end. These were a little larger than the former. The
inferior part of their body is flat, furnished with several extremely thin feet,
which moved very nimbly. The upper part of the body was round, and had
within 8, 10, or 12 globules, where they were very clear. These little animals
sometimes changed their figure into a perfect round, especially when they came
to lie on any dry place. Their body was also very flexible ; for as soon as they
struck against any the smallest fibre or string, their body was bent in, which
bending presently also jerked out again. When I put any of them on a dry
place, I observed that, changing themselves into a round, their body was raised
pyramidal- wise, with an extant p6mt in the middle; and having laid thus a little
while, with a motion of their feet, they burst asunder, and the globules were
presently diffused and dissipated, so that I could not discern the least thing of
any film, in which the globules had doubtless been enclosed; and at this time
of their bursting asunder, I was able to discover more globules than when they
were alive.

I observed a third sort of little animals, that were twice as long as broad, and
to my eye yet eight times smaller than the first. Yet I thought I discerned
little feet, whereby they moved very briskly, both in a round and straight
line.

There was a fourth sort, which were so small that I was not able to give
them any figure at all. These were a thousand times smaller than the eye of a
large louse. These exceeded all the former in celerity. I have often observed
them to stand still as it were on a point, and then turn themselves about with
that swiftness, as we see a top turn round, the circumference they made being
no larger than that of a small grain of sand, and then extending themselves
straight forward, and by and by lying in a bending posture. I discovered also
several other sorts of animals; these were generally made up of such soft parts,
as the former, that they burst asunder as soon as they came to want water.

May l6, it rained hard, the rain growing less, I caused some of that rain-
water, running down from the house-top, to be gathered in a clean glass, after
it had been washed two or three times with the water. And in this I observed
some few very small living creatures, and seeing them, I thought they might
have been produced in the leaden gutters in some water that had remained there
before.

I perceived in pure water, after some days, more of those animals, as also
some that where somewhat larger. And I imagine, that many thousands of
these little creatures do not equal an ordinary grain of sand in bulk; and com-
paring them with a cheese-mite, which may be seen to move with the naked

376 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677.

eye, I make the proportion of one of these small water- creatures to a cheese-
mite, to be like that of a bee to a horse ; for, the circumference of one of these
little animals in water is not so large as the thickness of a hair in a cheese-mite.

In another quantity of rain-water exposed for some days to the air, I observed
some thousands of them in one drop of water, which were of the smallest sort
that I had seen hitherto. And in some time after I observed, besides the ani-
mals already noted, a sort of creatures that were eight times as large, of almost
a round figure; and as those very small animalcula swam gently among each
other, moving as gnats do in the air, so did these larger ones move far more
swiftly, tumbling round as it were, and then making a sudden downfal.

In the water of the river of Maese I saw very small creatures of different
kinds and colours, and so small, that I could very hardly discern their figures ;
but the number of them was far less than of those found in rain-water. In the
water of a very cold well in the autumn, I discovered a great number of living
animals very small, that were exceedingly clear, and a little larger than the
smallest I ever saw. In sea water I observed at first, a little blackish animal,
looking as if it had been made up of two globules. This creature had a peculiar
motion, resembling the skipping of a flea on white paper, so that it might very
well be called a water-flea; but it was far less than the eye of that little animal,
which Dr. Swammerdam calls the water-flea. I also discovered little creatures
therein that were clear, of the same size with the former animal, but of an
oval figure, having a serpentine motion. I further noticed a third sort, which
were very slow in their motion; their body was of a mouse colour, clear to-
wards the oval point; and before the head and behind the body there stood out
a sharp little point angle-wise. This sort was a little larger. But there was yet
a fourth sort somewhat longer than oval. Yet of all these sorts there were but
a few of each. Some days after viewing this water, I saw 100 where before
I had seen but one; but these were of another figure, and not only less, but
they were also very clear, and of an oblong oval figure, only with this differ-
ence, that their heads ended sharper; and although they were a thousand times
smaller than a small grain of sand, yet when they lay out of the water in a dry
place, they burst in pieces, and spread into three or four very little globules,
and into some aqueous matter, without any other parts appearing in them.

Having put about one-third of an ounce of whole pepper in water, and
it having lain about three weeks in the water, to which I had twice added some
snow-water, the other water being in great part exhaled ; I discerned in it with
great surprise an incredible number of little animals, of divers kinds, and
among the rest, some that were three or four times as long as broad; but their
whole thickness did not much exceed that of the hair of a louse. They had a

▼OL. XII.5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTION!, S77

very pretty motion, often tumbling about and sideways; and when the water
was to let to run off from them, they turned round like a top; at first their
body changed into an oval, and afterwards, when the circular motion ceased,
they returned to their former length. The second sort of creatures discovered
m this water, were of a perfect oval figure, and they had no less pleasing or
nimble a motion than the former; and these were in far greater numbers. There
was a third sort, which exceeded the two former in number, and these had tails
like those I had formerly observed in rain-water. The fourth sort, which
moved through the three former sorts, were incredibly small, so that I judged,
that if 100 of them lay one by another, they would not equal the length of a
grain of coarse sand; and according to this estimate, 1,000,000 of them could
not equal the dimensions of a grain of such coarse sand. There was disco-
vered a fifth sort, which had near the thickness of the former, but almost twice
the length.

In snow-water, which had been about three years in a glass bottle well
stopped, I could discover no living creatures; and having poured some of it
into a porcelain tea-cup, and put therein half an ounce of whole pepper, after
some days I observed some animalcula, and those exceedingly small ones, whose
body seemed to me twice as long as broad, but they moved very slowly, and
often circularly. I observed also a vast multitude of oval-figured animalcula,
to the number of 6000 or 8000 in a single drop.

Some Observations, made by Sig. Cassini, concerning the two Planets about Sa-
turn, formerly discovered by him, as appears in N° Q2 of these Tracts, N° 1 33,
p. 831.

One of these two planets, which is distant from the centre of Saturn 10 dia-
meters and a half of his ring, makes its revolution about Saturn in 80 days. It
was discovered at the Parisian Observatory, anno 1671, about the end of Oct.
and in the beginning of Nov. in his greatest occidental digression, and after many
cloudy days it ceased to appear, for a reason which was then unknown, but has
since been discovered. For, after many revolutions of this small planet had been
observed, it was found to have a period of apparent augmentation and diminu-
tion, by which period it becomes visible in its greatest occidental digression,
and invisible in its greatest oriental elongation.

Hence it seems, that one part of its surface is not so capable of reflecting to
us the light of the sun as the other part is. Whence we may conjecture, that
the globe of this satellite has some diversity of parts, analogous to that of the
earth, the one part of whose surface is covered by the sea, which is not so fit
to reflect from all parts the light of the sun, as the continent which makes up

VOL. II. ' 3 C

378 PHILOSOI'HICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 676-7,

the other part; so that this planet, by a rotation about its axis, or by an exposi-
tion of the same hemisphere to Saturn, much after the manner of the hemi-
sphere of the moon to the earth, sometimes turns to us the part analogous to
the continent, sometimes that part which answers to the sea.

This vicissitude of phases in this planet was the cause that it could not be
found since it was first discovered in the year 1671, till the middle of Dec.
1672; after which time it disappeared once again, until the beginning of Feb.
1673, at which time, having been observed 13 days successively, it afforded the
opportunity of determining the period of its motion.

Since that time, as often as Saturn has been distant enough from the sun to
enable us to discern this planet, it has always been seen in all its occidental di-
gressions and in the conjunctions with Saturn, which have since happened with
a great latitude, as well in the upper part of its circle as in the lower, and it
could never be seen in the oriental digressions, where it remains invisible in
every revolution of 80 days for a whole month together.

It begins then to appear 2 or 3 days before the conjunction in the inferior
part, and to disappear 2 or 3 days after the conjunction in the superior part.

The other planet, which was discovered about the end of the year 1672, has
its greatest digression from the centre of Saturn only one diameter and two-
thirds of his ring, and the period of its revolution about Saturn is 4 days and a
half, but more precisely, 4 days, 12 hours, and 27 minutes. Its latitude aug-
ments also according as the ring enlarges. We have not yet been able to dis-
tinguish it in the conjunctions, either in the upper or lower part of its circle,
but only in the greatest, as well oriental as occidental, digressions. And this
satellite being alternately one day towards its conjunction and the other day to-
wards the digression, it is ordinarily seen only every third day, and rarely 2
days together, when it falls out that at the hour of observation it is in the
middle between the conjunction and digression.

Lastly, the apparent magnitude of these planets is so little, that posterity
will have cause to wonder that their discovery was begun by a glass of 17 feet.

An Account of some Books. N° 133, p. 833.

I. Pharmacopoeia Collegii Regalis Lond. A. 1677^ in fol.

II. Catalogus Plantarum Angliae, et Insularum adjacentium, tum indigenas,
tum in agris passim cultas complectens, &c. edit, secunda; operd Johannis
Raii, M.A. e Soc. Regia. Lond. 1 677, in 8vo.

In this edition the accurate and learned author presents the curious with a
considerable number of plants not contained in the first, which amount to about

rOL. Xir.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 37^

46, some of which were forgotten in the former edition, some were newly found
out by him. Besides many useful observations.

III. Aero Chalinos; or, A Register for the Air, &c. By Nathan. Henshaw,
M.D. Fellow of the Royal Society. Lond. 1677, in 12mo.

This tract consists of 5 chapters, of which the first treats of fermentation;
the second of chyl ifi cation ; the third of respiration; the fourth of sanguifica-
tion; and the fifth of the salubrity of frequently changing the air; with a
discovery of a new method of doing it without removing from one place to an-
other by means of an air-chamber fitted to that purpose.

IV. A Philosophical Essay of Music. Lond. 1677, in 4to.

This author's design being to explain the nature of music, he begins to in-
quire into the cause of sound; in order to which, he considers some of the
chief phsenomena of sound. According to him, sound may be caused by the
trembling of solid bodies, without the presence of gross air, and also by the
restitution of gross air, when it has been divided with any violence. Having
laid down this hypothesis, and left his reader to apply it to the phaenomena, he
proceeds to the discourse of music itself, and makes it a considerable part of his
business to show, how this action that causes sound is performed by the several
instruments of music; having taught his reader first, what a tone is, and that
the tones useful in music are those within the scale, in which they are placed as
they have relation to each other. Secondly, wherein consists that relation of
tones and the union of mixed sounds. Which done, he explains, how tones
are produced, and what assistances are given to the sound by instruments.
Where he teaches, that wherever a body stands on a spring that vibrates in equal
terms, such a body put into motion will produce a tone, which will be more
grave or acute, according to the velocity of the returns ; wherefore strings vi-
brating have a tone according to the thickness and tension of them; and bells
that vibrate by cross ovals, produce notes according to their size or the thick-
ness of their sides.

But finding it more difHcult to show how tones are made by a pipe, where
there are no visible vibrations ; he considers the frame of a pipe, and the mo-
tion of the air in it, and thereby attempts to find the cause of the tone of a
pipe, and the pulse that gives the sound, explaining how tones are made in
violins, harpsichords, and dulcimers.

To this he subjoins an ingenious discourse on the varying and breaking of
tones, endeavouring to explain how it is caused, both in strings and pipes,
where occur divers pertinent observations concerning the motion of pendulums,
the trumpet marine, and the true trumpet, as also the sackbut. Where he
takes notice of the advice of Vitruvius in his architecture, that in the structure

3C!2

380 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

of a theatre there should be vases or hollow pots of several sizes, to answer all
the notes of music placed on the stage in such manner that the voice of those
who sang on the stage might be augmented by their ringing ; Vitruvius men-
tioning divers ancient theatres, where there were some of brass, some of earth.

After this, he descends to the consideration of the nature of keys in music,
and of a single tune. Next he treats of schisms and the scale of music.

Having dispatched that work, he proceeds to music that consists of several
parts in concert, which is made up of harmony, formality, and conformity.
Of which, harmony is the grateful sound produced by the joining of several
tones in chord to each other; formality requires that the succeeding notes be
agreeable to the former; and conformity, that each part have the like tendency
to the succeeding notes. Lastly, he speaks of time, or the measures of music;
the due observance of which is grateful, for the same reason given for the for-
mality of a single tune, because the subsequent strokes are measured by the
memory of the former, and if they comprehend them, or are comprehended by
them, it is alike pleasant; the mind cannot choose but compare one with the
other, and observe when the strokes are coincident with the memory of the
former.

On the Trembling of Consonant Strings, a new Musical Discovery. By Dr.

Wallis. N° 134, p. 839.

Sir. — I have thought fit to notice a discovery that has been made here, about
three years since, or more, which I suppose may not be unacceptable to those
of the Royal Society, who are musical and mathematical. It is this, whereas
it has been long since observed, that if a viol or lute string be touched with the
bow or hand, another string on the same or another instrument not far from
it, if an unison to it or an octave, or the like, will at the same time tremble of
its own accord. The cause of it having been formerly discussed by divers, I do
not now inquire into. But add this to the former observation, that not the
whole of that other string trembles, but the several parts severally, according
as they are unisons to the whole, or the parts of that string which is so struck.
For instance, supposing AC (fig. 7? ph xi) to be an upper octave to «y, and
therefore an unison to each half of it, stopped at (3; now if, while ay is open,
AC be struck: the two halves of this other, that is, a|3 and ^y, will both
tremble, but not the middle point at p. Which will easily be observed, if a
little bit of paper be lightly wrapped about the string «y, and removed succes-
sively from one end of the string to the other. In like manner if AD (fig. 8)
1t)e an upper twelfth to x$, and consequently an unison to its three parts equally

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 381

divided in p, y. Now if, a$ being open, AD be struck, its three parts, a(3, |3y,
y$, will severally tremble, but not the points p, y ; which may be observed in
like manner as the former. In like manner, if AE (fig. 9) be a double octave
to at; the four quarters of this will tremble, when that is struck, but not the
points (3, y, S. So if AG be a fifth to an, (fig. 10) ; and consequently each half
of that stopped in D, an unison to each third part of this stopped in yt, while
that is struck, each part of this will tremble severally, but not the points y, t ;
and while this is struck, each of that will tremble, but not the point D. The
like will hold in less concords, but the less remarkably as the number of divi-
sions increases.

This was first of all, that I know of, discovered by Mr. William Noble, a
Master of Arts of Merton College, and by him showed to some of our musicians
about three years since; and after him by Mr. Thomas Pigot, a Bachelor of
Arts, and Fellow of Wadham College; who giving notice of it to some others,
found that, unknown to him, the same had been formerly noticed by Mr.
Noble, and upon notice from him, by others; and it is now commonly known
to our musicians here. I add this further, which I took notice of on occasion
of making trial of the other, that the same string as xy, being struck in the
midst at (3, each part being unison to the other, will give no clear sound at all,
but very confused. And not only so, which others also have observed, that a
string does not sound clear if struck in the middle, but also, if x$ be struck at
|3 or y, where one part is an octave to the other; and in like manner, if « t be
struck at (3 or <?; the one part being a double octave to the other. And so if a^
be struck in y or S, (fig. 11 ) the one part being a fifth to the other, and so in
other like consonant divisions; but still the less remarkable as the number of
divisions increases. This and the former I judge to depend upon one and the
same cause, viz. the contemporary vibrations of the several unison parts, which
make the one tremble at the motion of the other ; but when struck at the res-
pective points of divisions, the sound is incongruous, by reason that the point
is disturbed which should be at rest.

A lute or viol-string will thus answer, not only to a consonant string on the
same or a neighbouring lute or viol, but to a consonant note in wind-instru-
ments, which was particularly tried on a viol, answering to the consonant notes
on a chamber-organ, very remarkably, but not so remarkably to the wire -strings
of a harpsichord. Which, whether it were because of the different texture in
metal-strings from that of gut-strings, or, which I rather think, because the
metal-strings, though they give to the air as smart a stroke, yet not so diffusive
as the other, I list not to dispute. But wind-instruments give to the air as
communicative a concussion, if not more, than that of gut-strings. And we

382 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [ANNO I677.

feel the wainscot seats on which we sit or lean to tremble constantly at certain
notes on the organ or other wind instruments ; as well as at the same notes on
a bass-viol. I have heard also of a thin fine Venice glass cracked with the
strong and lasting sound of a trumpet or cornet, near it, sounding an unison or
a consonant note to that of the tone or ting of the glass. And I do not judge
he thing very unlikely, though I have not had the opportunity of making the
trial.

An Improvement of the Bononian Stone shining in the dark.

Signer Malpighi, in a late letter of his to the editor, of the gth of March,
takes notice, that one Signor Zagonius had a way of making out of the
Bononian stone calcined, statues and pictures variously shining in the dark.
But he adds, that unfortunately that person lately died, without discovering to
any one his method of preparing the said stone.*

An Extract of a Letter written from Aberdeen, Feb. 17, 167^, bi/ Mr. George
Garden. Concerning a Man of a strange Imitating Nature, as also of several
human Calculi of an unusual Size. N° 134, p. 842.

I remember when Mr. Scougall and I were with you last summer, we had
occasion to speak of a man in this country very remarkable for something pecu-
liar in his temper, that inclines him to imitate unawares all the gestures and
motions of those with whom he converses. We then had never seen him our-
selves. Since our return we were together at Strachbogie where he dwells, and
notwithstanding all we had heard of him before, were somewhat surprized with
the oddness of this dotterel quality. This person, named Donald Monro, being
a little old and very plain man, of a thin slender body, has been subject to this
infirmity, as he told us, from his very infancy. He is very loath to have it ob-
served, and therefore casts down his eyes when he walks in the streets, and
turns them aside when he is in company. We had made several trials before he
perceived our design ; and afterward had much to do to make him stay. We
caressed him as much as we could, and had then the opportunity to observe,
that he imitated not only the scratching of the head, but also the wringing of
the hands, wiping of the nose, stretching forth of the arms, &c. And we
needed not strain compliment to persuade him to be covered; for he still put
off and on as he saw us do, and all this with so much exactness, and yet with
such a natural and unaffected air that we could not so much as suspect he did it

* It has been already mentioned in a note at p, 139, volume i. of this Abridgement, that the
method of preparing the Bonoiiian stone for shining in the dark, is no longer a secret

TOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOWf. 383

on design. When we held both his hands, and caused another to make such
motions, he pressed to get free : but, when we would have known more parti-
cularly how he found himself affected, he could only give us this simple answer,
that it vexed his heart and his brain.

I took occasion lately to visit a poor woman in the neighbouring parish, who
has been long afflicted with the gravel, and has passed four stones of an unusual
size ; of which I have one by me, which though it be not the largest of the 4,
is yet more than 5 inches about the one way, and 4 the other. They are all
oval ; the first and a part of the second were smooth ; but the other two very
rough ; and the last the largest, which came away about Christmas last, was
bloody on one side when I saw it. This puts me in mind of that stone of a
prodigious size, which was found last year in a gentleman's bladder in this
country, after his decease, weighing 32 ounces.

M. Leewenhoeck^s manner of observing the Animalcula in divers Sorts of Water,

N' 1 34, p. 844.

I thus order my division of the water, and the enumeration of the animalcula :
I suppose that a drop of water equals a pea in bulk ; and I take a little quantity
of water of a round figure, as large as a millet-grain ; this I reckon to be the
-gV part of a pea: for when the axis of a millet-seed makes 1, that of a pea
makes 4-l : whence it follows, that the grain of a millet is at least the -gV part
of a pea, according to the received rules of mathematicians.* This small
quantity of water I gather up into a very slender glass-pipe, dividing by this
means that little water into 25 or 30 parts, of which I observe one part after
another, and show the same to others.

Other spectators, as well as myself, judged that in -^ part of the water,
equalling the bulk of a millet-seed, he saw more than 1000 living animals : but
they wondered much more, when I said I saw in it two or three kinds of much
smaller animals besides, which did not appear to them, because I saw them by
another microscope, which I still reserve to myself alone. Hence it is manifest,
that if in the -^ part of one millet-seed there are seen 1000, there may be seen
30,000 in one such whole seed, and consequently in a drop of water, which is
91 times larger than such a seed, there may be seen 2,730,000. For, 4-i- X 4-i-
X 4-i- = 9H; and gi X 30,000 = 2,730,000.

Otherwise, I compare the quantity of the water to the bulk of a grain of sand ;
in which quantity of water I doubt not at all that I see more than 1000 ani-
malcula. Now if the axis of a grain of sand be 1 , the axis of a drop of water

* That is, by cubing the diameters.

884 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

is at least 10, and consequently a drop is a 1000 times larger than that sand,
and therefore 1,000,000 living creatures in one drop of water. In which com-
putation I rather lessen than heighten the number.

These, Sir, I thought good to add to the observations I have made, and
showed to others, with the applause of the beholders. The rest, and the make
of my microscopes I cannot yet communicate. After I had sent away my for-
mer letter, I gave not over observing the animalcula in water ; examining also
distilled and boiled waters. Last winter, when the severe cold had killed the
little creatures, observing the water thawed by the warmth of the room in which
it had stood for a whole day with a fire in it, I found after 24 hours were
elapsed, and another time after 17 hours were passed, that some living animals
appeared again in that water.

Continuation of the Hortulan and Rural Advertisements* By Dr. John Beale.

N° 134, p. 846.

Omitted, for the same reason as before.

An Account of Observations made for several Years together^ concerning three
New Stars, one in the TVhales Neck, the other two near the Head and Breast
of the Swan. By M. Hevelius. N° 134, p. 853. Translated from the Latin^

It is well known that the new star in the neck of the Whale has been con-
tinually observed, from the year l638 to the year 1662, and in the same place
in the heavens ; but not always of the same magnitude, nor shining with the
same lustre ; but in some years disappearing, and again shining out, sometimes
sooner, sometimes later, without observing any certain periods of time : as
fully appears in the short history of that wonderful star, published in 1662, with
my account of Mercury seen in the sun, p. l64. But in the subsequent years,
especially from l665 to the present time, that star has not been so diligently
explored. And therefore, for continuing that short history, I have added the
following table, exhibiting the appearances and returns of that star : by which
it may be known at once, its beginning and ending, how it has increased and
decreased, when it disappeared, and when it shone out again. You will there
see that the said new star in CoUo Ceti appeared in every year, till Oct. 1672,
though as it were with a different phase : but that after that it never appeared
again for an interval of 4 years, viz. from about Oct. 1672,' to Dec. 1676, as I
may say that I sought for it with watchful eyes, every time that I made observa-
tions in clear nights.

Therefore, by how much the less it has been observed by the ancients, that

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 385

the fixed stars have suffered such wonderful changes, and that continually for
the space of so many years; again for so many years hid, that these could never
have been discovered without a telescope; so much the more ought they to be
noted ; that we may excite posterity, by the sedulous watching of such phaeno-
mena, to search more and more in the great works of creation. It is true
several new stars have been observed by our predecessors; but none of this
kind that I remember, except those two which have appeared in our own ages,
viz. that in the breast of the Swan, discovered by Kepler, I think in the year
1601, and that other under the head of the Swan which appeared in 1672. Of
these, what in like manner I have of late years observed, will fully appear by
the following ephemeris : viz. that the star in the breast of the Swan, which
from about the year 1662 certainly disappeared, was seen to appear again in
clear nights in 1665 ; so that the following year 1666, it could be observed
again with the sextant as a very minute star ; and from that time gradually in-
creasing, but without arriving at its former magnitude, being of the third order,
or its former splendor, as it appeared in the years 1 6 57, l658, and 1659 : and
now while I at present write it only shines as a star of the 6th magnitude. And
that other below the head of the Swan, which I first saw in the summer of the
year 1670, came to appear as a star of the third magnitude in the months of
October and November, after which it sensibly decreased in lustre and magni-
tude, till it vanished; yet it returned again the following year 1671, in the
month of April, and was visible all the summer, although with a different
phase, and so decreased till the month of March 1672, when it could no longer
be seen, though I have often with diligence looked for it. From whence
astronomers will clearly perceive what has occurred with regard to those new
stars for the 12 years elapsed; but as to what may happen hereafter^ that must
be learned from the observations of future years.
Dantzic, Jan. 2, N.S.\677'

The Ephemeris of the New Stars.

An. 1665, Nov. 28. — ^The new star in the Swan's breast, which for some
time, from 1662, was quite hid, seemed in a clear sky as it were reviving.

An. 1666, Sept. 21. — ^The new star in ColloCeti no where appeared; but
that in the Swan's breast appeared to the naked eye, even while the moon
shone.

Sept. 24. — The new star before the Swan's breast was less than the three pre-
ceding in the neck, and hardly seemed of the sixth magnitude.

An. 1667, Jan. 7. — The new star in the Whale's neck did not yet appear.

Jan. 13. — Neither does it yet appear.

VOL. II. 3 D

386 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

Feb. 2.— It first appeared very bright, being equal to that in the mouth of
the Whale, or to that in Nodo Lini.

Feb. 7. — It was still equal to that in the Whale's mouth.
' Feb. 10. — It appeared extremely bright.

Feb. 27. — It yet appeared very bright, even where the moon shone ; and was
larger than that in the Whale's mouth.

March 13. — It still appeared very bright, and nearly of the same magnitude.

An. 1668, Oct. 26. — The new star in Collo Ceti first appeared, but only like
a very minute star.

Nov. 7- — It was almost equal to the middle star in the Whale's mouth.

Nov. ] 6. — It was nearly equal to that in the mouth.

An. 1669, Jan. 28. — It was less than that in the mouth.

Sept. 26. — It appeared only like a star of the sixth magnitude,

Oct. ] 6. — It was greater and brighter than that in the mouth.

Oct. 24. — It was equal to the bright star in the jaw.

Nov. 19. — It was greater than that in the mouth, but less than that in the
jaw.

An. 1670, Aug. 27. — It shone exceedingly bright, being nearly equal to the
stars of the second magnitude, and to that in the jaw.

Sept. 3. — It still shone very bright ; and tlje other in the breast of the Swan
seemed to increase.

Sept. 8. — It was still equal to that in the jaw. But the other under the head
of the Swan appeared evidently to decrease; so that it seemed to me hardly
greater than the superior of the two unformed stars preceding the Swan's head,
that is of the fifth magnitude. But that in the breast of the Swan appeared yet
a little to increase.

Oct. 13. — The new star under the Swan's head scarcely at all appeared, as
also the head of the Swan, while the new star in the breast appeared pretty
bright.

Oct. 14. — ^The new star under the Swan's head was very faint, and scarcely
at all to be seen.

Dec. 5. — ^The new star in Collo Ceti is still decreased, so as hardly to equal
a star of the sixth magnitude.

An. 1671 5 April 29. — ^The new star under the Swan's head, seen again of
the third magnitude, exceeded that in the Swan's beak, and almost equalled
that in the lower wing ; but rather less than that in the breast, except that its
light was more dull. But the other, in the breast, appeared yet hardly larger
than in the year past ; so that it equalled only a star of the sixth magnitude.

May 17. — It seemed rather less than that in the beak, and that in the

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 387

shoulder of the Eagle, as also duller in its light; but greater than that in the
point of Sagitta, and almost equal to the following star in the neck of the
Harp.

May 25. — It seemed less than on the 29th of April, when it was first seen ;
so that it seems decreasing. It is less than that in the Swan's beak, or that in
the bend of the southern wing, also less than those in the neck of the Harp
and the Eagle's shoulder ; hardly appearing larger indeed than the less of the
two in the Swan's foot, and that in the Eagle's breast.

June 16. — It appeared less than that in the Swan's neck ; so that it decreases
remarkably. But that other before the Swan's breast, seemed rather larger than
last year.

July 3. — The same new star under the Swan's head was rather less than that
in the neck.

July 1 8. — It now hardly equals the stars of the fifth magnitude.

August 2. — It hardly now appeared of the sixth magnitude, being less than
all the other stars about the neck and head of the Swan, and only twinkling
now and then.

Aug. 6, 7, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25. — It decreased more and more, so as to
he scarcely perceived these days, till on the last it w^as quite invisible. But that
other in the neck of the Whale was equal to the star in the cheek, or even
larger.

Sept. 11, 12. — ^The former was no longer to be seen; but that in the neck
©f the Whale was equal to that in the mouth, viz. of the fourth magnitude.

Oct. 30. — ^The new star in the Whale's neck scarcely appeared of the sixth
magnitude.

Nov. 3. — ^The same star no longer appeared.

An. 1672, March 29. — The new star under the Swan's head appeared,
though hardly equal to the sixth magnitude. But that other in the breast
seemed rather increasing.

August 9. — The new star in the neck of the Whale shone with brilliant rays,
being greater than that in the mouth, though less than that in the jaw. But
that under the Swan's head shone no more this year.

Sept. 17. — ^That in the Whale's neck was less than that in the cheek, being
less than the fourth, or even the fifth magnitude.

Sept. 25. — It is now scarcely of the sixth magnitude.

Oct. 9. — It no longer appeared ; and so it continued invisible all the time to
Dec. 23, 1676, though I looked for it very attentively, whenever I made ob-
servations in a clear night.

3d1>

388 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iG//.

An. 1675, July 12. — The new star in the Swan's breast shines again at
nights, but only as a star of the sixth magnitude.

An. 1676, Dec. 10. — I well remember that I could not see the new
star in Collo Ceti> though I observed many small stars in the same part of
the heavens.

Dec. 23. — ^The sky being very clear, we saw very plainly the new star in
the neck of the whale. It shone with such brightness and was so large, that
it not only equalled, but even exceeded that in the Whale's jaw.

Dec. 31. It was again observed larger than that in the jaw, that is, of the
second magnitude.

An. 1677. — Jan. 1. It again shone out very brightly, rather larger than
the star in the jaw, than that in the extremity of the wing of Pegasus and
Marcab, in colour and light not unlike to the jaw. Yet I remember to have
formerly observed, when it was of the second magnitude, that it was rather
whiter and brighter.

^n Account of two Books. N° 134, p. SSQ.

I. Traite de la Percussion ou Choc des Corps, &c. par Monsieur Mariotte,
de I'Academie Royale des Sciences. A Par. 1673, m \1^.

In this work are treated the effects resulting from the shock of bodies, both
clastic and non-elastic: in which the author confirms the reasonings of some
preceding philosophers, and delivers some new ones of his own.

From several reasons and experiments by him delivered, he concludes, that
the greatest part of hard bodies, as steel, marble, glass, ivory, jasper, &c. have
a ready and strong springy power ; and that all the motions of reflecting bodies
are only made by springs. Whereunto he adds, that if it should be supposed
that hard bodies are inflexible, it would be impossible to explain their motions
when their weights are unequal, and that the phaenomena do no ways agree to
such an hypothesis. But taking it for a mere hypothesis, what he pretends to
have demonstrated concerning the springiness of hard bodies, he tells us, that
by that means all motions befalling those bodies, after they have any way im-
pelled one another, may easily be accounted for.

II. Johannis Trithemii Steganographia, vindicata, reserata, et illustrata, &c.
Auth. Wolfgango Ernesto Heidel, Wormatiensi. Mogun. 1676, in4to.

This Steganography, or the art of signifying ones mind to another by an
occult or secret way of writing, having been censured as supposititious by some,
and pernicious, magical and necromantical by others ; this author undertakes to
vindicate it from those imputations, and to give the true key and meaning
thereof.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 389

Of an unusual Meteor. By Dr. fVallis. N° 135, p. 863.

Sir, — I know not whether in your transactions you have any where taken
notice of that unusual meteor, which happened on Wednesday Sept. 20th,
1676, about 7 o'clock at night, or soon after; which, though it seemed very
low, was seen in most parts of England much at the same time, and much in
the same manner. I hear of it from divers persons who saw it in Oxford,
Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Somersetshire, Hamp-
shire, Kent, Essex, London, &c. Some here call it a draco volars. I have
sometimes been fancying it might be higher than they imagined, only casting
a light so low. And if I had heard any thing from it abroad, should have
inclined to think it a comet, passing swiftly by us, very near the earth, even
through our air. But if it had been so, it must be a very small one, otherwise
we should have heard more of it.

In the dusk of that evening, there appeared a sudden light, equal to that
of noon-day ; so that the smallest pin or straw might be seen lying on the
ground. And above in the air was seen, at no great distance as was supposed,
a long appearance as of fire ; like a long arm, with a great knob at the end of
it, shooting along very swiftly : and, at its disappearing, seemed to break into
small sparks or parcels of fire, like as rockets and such artificial fire-works in
the air usually do. It was so surprising and of so short continuance, that it
was scarcely seen by any who did not then happen to be abroad : its duration,
by report, less than half a minute. It seems surprising that it was seen in most
parts of England, and at or near the same time : which argues, that either it
was higher than the observers imagined, or else that it had a very swift motion.
This made me conjecture that it might be some small comet, whose linea tra-
jectoria passed very near our earth, or upon it. That comet which has.now
appeared, in this and the last month, confirms me in the same opinion ; which
I conjecture may be the very same which passed by us in September last.
Which way its motion was when near us, I cannot conclude, so as to satisfy
myself. For most that saw it, being suddenly surprized, took little more
notice of it, than that it suddenly appeared and was suddenly gone, but saw it
so little time as scarcely to mark which way. My conjecture on the whole,
though perhaps but a conjecture, has at least so much of probability in it, as
to deserve some consideration : and may serve, if true, to give us some light
into the nature of comets ; which perhaps will seldom have been found to come
so near us, as this seems to have done.

390 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677,

•' On four Sorts of factitious Shining Substances. N° 135, p. 867.

Two of these four substances have been already noticed in two of the late
Transactions, viz. N° 131, and N° 134; one of them being the factitious paste
of Dr. Baldwin, shining in the dark like a glowing coal, after it has been a
while exposed to the day or candle-light; the other, the Bononian stone cal-
cined, which imbibes light from the sun-beams, and sq renders it again in the
dark, whereas the former needs no sun-shining. To these we shall now add
two other sorts. The one is by the Germans called phosphorus smaragdinus,
said to be of this nature, that it collects its light not so much from the sun-
beams, or the illuminated air, as from the fire itself; seeing that, if some of
it be laid on a silver or copper-plate, under which are put some live coals, or
a lighted taper, it will presently shine; and if the same matter be shaped into
letters, they may be read.* The other is called phosphorus fulgurans, which is
made both in a liquid and dry form ; and not only shines in the dark, and com-
municates a sudden light to such bodies as it is rubbed on, but being included
in a glass-vessel well closed, it now and then fulgurates, and sometimes rises
as it were into waves of light. It is further said, that a little portion of it
having been kept two whole years, has not yet lost its power of shining : so
that it is believed, if a considerable piece of it were prepared, it would serve
for a perpetual, or at least a very long lasting light.

Observations of the late Comet, made at Paris by Signor Cassini, N° 135, p. 868.

Translated from the Latin,

M. Romer first obser\^ed the new comet, April 28, N. S. 1677 ; and,
having presently informed me of it, at 4^^ Q^ 31® after midnight, we took its
altitude \1° 22' 10''. I judged it to be in a vertical, declining about 33° from the
east .towards the north. — On the 29th it was seen by M. Picard for a moment
through the clouds, at 3^ 9"^ 31^ after midnight, at an altitude of 4° 39'.

May 2d in the morning, the right ascension of the mid-heaven by the
fixed stars being 267°, the altitude of the comet was 4° 5': the distance of
the vertical about 42° 8' from the north towards the east. — May 4, at 3^ 30"",
the comet's altitude was 5° 33'; the distance of the azimuthal from the north
towards the east about 42° 32'. — May 5, at 3^ 32"", the comet's altitude was
5° 10'; the azimuthal distance from the north to the east about 44° 10^

* The substances here enumerated make but a very small part indeed of the number of mineral
bodies which, under certain circumstances, become luminous in the dark. See Mr. Thomas
Wedgewood's experiments on the production of light from different bodies by Iieat and attrition, ia
the 82d volume of the Philosophical Transactions.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQl

Afterward the cloudy time, both morning and evening, prevented any fur-
ther observations of the comet. ^

By these observations it appears that the comet at first was in the triangle,
afterwards near the head of Medusa ; and showing that it proceeded according
to the order of the signs by a line that was very near, and almost parallel to,
that which was described by the comet in Feb. ISQO. The magnitude of its
head, seen through the telescope, was almost equal to the disk of Jupiter, or
somewhat less. It did not appear perfectly round, but of an oval figure, the
longer diameter being parallel to the horizon ; which seemed to be owing to
the horizontal refraction. Its coma, seen through the telescope, was broad,
and nearly parabolical ; but to the naked eye it seemed narrow, and a little
inflected towards the west.

The same Comet observed at Dantzic, by M. Hevelius. N° 135, p. 869, 871.

Translated from the Latin,

A comet has lately appeared which was first observed here at Dantzic,
April 27, in the morning. On the 28th it could not be seen for the clouds.
But on the 29th it arose, or rather appeared to sight, at 1*^ 52"^ in the
direction north-east by north. Its head was not large, but yet bright, con-
sisting of one shining nucleus, like that of the year 1665. It stretched out a
tail pretty luminous, with divaricating rays turned upwards, near 2° in length.
The line of direction of the tail produced passed between Alamac, the bright
foot of Andromeda, and her girdle, bisecting the distance between these two
stars. It was then above the head of Aries in the triangle, between the apex
and the northern star in the base, viz. in 5° of Taurus, and in 19° of north
latitude. At the same time its distance from the sun, according ,to longitude,
was only 5", but in its own great circle 20°. Since the comet was then so near
the sun, it could not show a longer tail, though I believe it had one much
longer, and in a few days it will probably appear still shorter.

April 30, it was found in 9° of Taurus, and 1 8° north latitude, and nearly
as far from the sun, being in 12° of Taurus. It spread its tail again 2^ or more,
to the northern star in the base of the triangle, which star could plainly be seen
with good tubes at the end of the tail. — May 1, at 2^ 32"" in the morning, it
was found in 11° of Taurus, with 18" north latitude, nearly in conjunction
with the sun, from which it was distant as many degrees. Its tail was yet
pretty bright, but a little shorter, though broader, which it stretched out to
the bright foot of Andromeda. From April 29, when I first saw it, to this
day May 1, it passed over nearly 5° 30' in its own direction.

As far as I can collect from these observations, it moves directly towards the

392 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

left foot of Perseus, above Taurus, to the feet of Gemini, if it so long con-
tinue. The descending node may be about 20° of Gemini, by conjecture,
where it will pass the ecliptic to the southward, with an inclination of its orbit
of near 27^-

May 2, in the evening, at 8^ 45"^, though no stars appeared in that part of
the heavens, and there was a strong twilight, yet I presently found the comet
with my optical tube. A little after, its altitude was 3° 30'. On account of
the twilight the tail appeared very thin, which was extended between the knees
of Cassiopea, but nearer to the left. It went down about 1 0 that evening,
in the north-north-west.

May 3y in the morning, the comet rose at N. N. E, at 1^ 23*", though we
saw the tail a little sooner, viz. at 1^ IS"". It was in 14° of y, nearly in
conjunction with the sun, having 17° latitude, and nearly the same distance
from the sun. This day the tail was longer, extending near 3 degrees, very
bright and well defined. Thus we saw it with the naked eyes at 3*^ 34%
and with the telescope at 3^ 40"*, at an altitude of 1 1° 30"*; so that the sun
at that time was depressed only 6° below the horizon ; and we had seen it
longer, but for some small intervening clouds. Its daily motion seemed to
decrease, as far as I could judge by conjecture, without a calculation. For
between the 29th and 30th of April it moved near 2° 45'; between April 30
and May 1, but 2° 15'; between May 1 and 2, but 1° 55'; and between May
2 and 3, only 1° 40'. But this will be seen plainer from the observations them-
selves and the calculation. — On May 4, in the evening, the air being very
pure at 8^ 53% the comet was seen, but a little obscurer than the former days,
and the tail shorter. — On May 5, at 1^ 41"* in the morning, it was seen with
the tail directed towards the right knee of Cassiopea, its longitude 17° of
Taurus, with l6° north latitude, and at the same distance from the sun. Its
proper motion from the 3d to the 5th of May was nearly 2° 40", the latitude
decreased, viz. from its beginning near 3°; so that the proper motion of the
comet, from April 29 to May 5, was 12°. — May 6, in the morning, its place
was in 18° of y , with 15° 30' north latitude, the sun being then in 17° of y ;
the daily motion then about 50'. The head at that time seemed thinner and
weaker than the tail, as the sun was only about 16-i- degrees distant. — May 6,
in the evening, it was seen with the optic tube at 8^ 35"*, with the tail shorter
and thinner ; but its situation below, and the twilight strong, the comet could
not be seen with the naked eye.

On May 7, the comet was first seen at 2^ 22"*, at 3° altitude, so that it
appeared very thin ; its place was then 19° of y, and 15° north latitude; its
distance from the sun l6°, the sun being in 18° of y ; its proper motion

•VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3^3

decreasing more and more, as far as could be known without a calculation.-^
May 8, from one o'clock in the morning it was sought for in vain with the
naked eye, but was discovered with the ] 2-foot telescope, having still a tail,
though very short, extending a little to the left hand from the vertical circle.
As near as could be guessed, it was in 20° of y , at the distance of 15° from
the sun, which was then in 1 9° of y ; the comet was then nearly in a line with
the right shoulder of Perseus, and Algol of Medusa, its diameter being hardly
equal to the half of Jupiter's. It was still conspicuous enough by the tube, so
that at 3^ 45"" we could distinctly perceive it, at near 9° altitude; whence it may
be collected that the arch of vision was scarcely then 5°; for the sun was hardly
5° below the horizon, and all the stars had disappeared, excepting the planet
Jupiter only; and the sun rose at 4*^ 6"*. — May 8, in the evening, the comet
could no longer be seen, either with the naked eye or with any telescope, nor
yet on any day afterwards.

Mr. Flamsteed^s Account of his Observations of the late Comet from Greenwich ^

May 18, 1677. N° 135, p. 873.

The first certain notice I had of the comet was on April 21, I waited the
rising of it; but immediately after midnight the heavens were overspread with
clouds, and continued so till sun-rise next morning, preventing me of my de-
sires. The next night, April 22, I again waited for its rising, the heavens be-
ing now exceedingly serene and clear, at about 2 o'clock after the midnight
following, I saw the tail raised almost perpendicular to the horizon ; soon after
the head appeared through a thin vapour, from which the tail pointed, as near
as I could guess, on the star in the knee of Cassiopea, its length being about 6
degrees, and breadth at the top about 7 or 8 minutes. Viewing the head with
a telescope of 16 feet, I found it was not perfectly round, but indented, and
not near 1 minute diameter. Afterwards I hasted to measure its distances from
several fixed stars, which were as follow: April 22.

14h 44m Q% ii-g j-jead and the foot of Androm. Alam 11° 26' 0"

A"] 15.. that distance repeated 11 26 50

55 3. . its head from Capella 31 1 15

59 10. . the same repeated 31 1 24

15 12 2. . its head from Algol in Medusa's 8 16 54

21 22 Mirach I9 35 O

27 54 Almech again 11 33 30

15 36 20 Capella again 30 59 45

At 15^ 21-I-" p.m. the height of the comet was about 5-^°; therefore the

VOL. II. 3 £

3Q4 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO iGjJ,

distance of the head of the comet from Algol correct by refraction was 8° I9',
from Mirach, 19° 37'-

And admitting with Mr. Hevelius the place of Mirach now in "f 21° 40' 34'',
with north latitude 25° 57\ its distance from Algol will be 23° 42' 40", and
the place of the head of the comet in y 14° 48^', with north latitude 17° 8'.

At 15^ 28*" I state the correct distance of the comet's head from Capella 31°,
from Alameck 11° 40'; and therefore its true place in y 14° 504-', with north
latitude 17° 6' 25''^; agreeing very well with the place derived from the former
distances from two other and different stars.

The tail was not, it seems, directly opposite to the sun ; for the sun's place
was now y 30° 7'; but the comet being in 14° 47' of the same sign, that is
l** 40' in consequence of the sun, the tail ought, if it had been exactly opposite
to the sun, to have lain in consequence of the head ; but the knee of Cassiopea
is now in y 13° 24' in antecedence of the comet, whose tail lay not therefore
in consequence, but in antecedence of the line passing through its head and the
sun, at about an angle of 10".

Next night, being that following the 23d of April, about -|- of an hour after
2 1 saw its tail, which appeared much shorter than last morning through a break
of the clouds ; which soon after opening wider I saw the head too, and hasting
I measured its distance. April 23 at 14*" 51"^ p. m. from Mirach 21° 9'; but
before I could get the plane of the sextant to Algol, the clouds came over the
comet again, and I could see it no more.

Hence, and from a coarse observation of it sent me by an ingenious friend^
I found its motion was direct, and its latitude decreasing.

Jin jiccount of some Books. N° 135, p. 875.

I. The Natural History of Oxfordshire, being an Essay toward the Natural
History of England. By Robert Plot,* LL.D. Printed at the Theatre in Ox-
ford, 1677, in fol.

* Robert Plot, author of the well-known History of Oxfordshire, &c. was, according to the au-
thors of the General Biographical Dictionary, 8vo. born of a genteel family, in l641, at Sutton-Barn,
in Kent, and educated at the Free-school of Wye, in the same county. In l658 he went to Mag-
dalen Hall in Oxford} took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 166I, and that of Master of Arts in
1664, and both the degrees in law in 1671. He afterwards removed to University College. Being
a ver)' ingenious man, and particularly attached to natural history, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society, and in 1662 was chosen one of the secretaries. He published the Philosophical
Transactions from No. 143 to No, 166 inclusive. In l683, Elias Ashmole, Esq. appointed him the
first keeper of his museum 3 and about the same time he was nominated by the vice-chancellor the
first professor of chemistry in that university. In l687 he was made secretary to the Earl-marshal,
or Comt of Chivalry, which was then renewed, after it had lain dormant since the year 1^41. In

VOL. Xlf.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3^5

The worthy and learned author of this work having very generously under-
taken to make a fuller and stricter survey of the natural and artificial things of
England than has been made hitherto, and being induced to this undertaking by
the consideration of advancing thereby both the knowledge of nature, and the
business of trade; has begun to execute this noble design by giving us a very
particular account of what occurred to him, for the most part upon his own per-
sonal inquiry, in Oxfordshire. An attempt so considerable, that if it were pur-
sued by fit persons all over the world with care, judgment, and diligence, would
in time produce a just history of nature, and furnish both the philosopher with
good materials to work with, and generally all sorts of men with the pleasure
and useful knowledge of the riches and wonders of the world.

But Dr. Plot's work is too well known to require the reprinting of the very
minute account of it first given in the Philosophical Transactions.

II. L' Architecture Navale, avec le Routier des Indes Orientales et Occi-
dentales. Par le Sieur Dassie. A Par. l677, in 4to.

The author of this book desires it to be considered as a small essay or fore-
runner of abundance of excellent researches of his curiosity, which he says, he
is preparing for the public. His main design in this work he affirms to have
been no other than to reduce into art, as methodically as he could, a science so
necessary and useful to the state, to render it familiar, and to quicken those that
are skilled in the mathematics and in naval architecture, to inquire after infal-
lible ways of making ships sail better, and to find out the just weight of a ship's
burden, and its true symmetry, and so to bring this art to perfection.

III. Philosophical Dialogues concerning the Principles of Natural Bodies.
By W. Simpson, M.D. Lond. 1677-

' A work replete with false theories and reasonings.

IV. A New Treatise of Chemistry, &c. written in French by Christopher
Glaser,* and now faithfully translated by F.R.S. Lond. 1677, in 8vo.

1688 he received the title of historiographer to James the Second, In 1690 he resigned his profes-
sorship of chemistry, and also his place of keeper of the museum, to which he presented a large
collection of natural curiosities, being such as he had figured and described in his Histories of Staf-
fordshire and Oxfordshire, and those distinguished by the title of Scrinium Plotianvun StafFordiense.
In 1694-5, Henry Howard, Earl-marshal, nominated him Mowbray herald extraordinary, and two
days after he was constituted registrar of the court of honour. He died of the stone in April 1696,
leaving two sons by a wife whom he had married in I690, His principal works are the Histories of
Oxfordshire and Staffordshire, both in folio. He was also the author of several other learned and in-
genious productions, and left several manuscripts behind him, among which were large materials for
the natural history of Kent, Middlesex, and in particular of the City of London.

* Christian Glaser, a native of Basil, was held in considerable estimation as a chemist in the 17th
century. He settled at Paris, and became apothecary to Lewis XIV. and to the Duke of Orleans,

3 E 2

396 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677.

This author here publishes a short and easy method for the happy attainment
of all the most necessary preparations of chemistry.

As for the theory he speaks succinctly, yet seems to say so much of it as may
suffice for direction to the preparations ; performing his operations on minerals,
vegetables, and animals.

On a Cheap and Useful Pump. By Mr. John Conyers. N° 136, p. 888.

Here, A A (fig. 12, pi. xi) is the body of the pump, made of oak, elm, or
deal planks; with a valve at bottom aa. BB the bucket, in the midst of which
there is a valve b, not visible in the figure, being concealed by the sides of the
leather bh. CCC the iron to raise the bucket. DD the wood at the bottom
of the bucket containing the valve. EE the handle for raising the bucket, to
be managed by fewer hands than ordinary pumps are ; which may be altered so
as to employ a horse or mill, or other such like way more advantageous than
that of this handle managed by the strength of men. FF a square taper-box,
with holes in the sides, and open at the bottom ; into the narrower part of
which is inclosed the narrower end of the body of the pump. GG an additional
bucket of a larger dimension, to be placed in the iron work of the pump about
H, when it shall be needful to lengthen the taper of the pump, and so to raise
the water more forcibly to a greater height. 1 1 the spout of the pump, to cast
out the water of the same breadth with the side of the pump, at the place re-
presented by the figure. KK the iron or wooden work set off or bent back, if
needful, and placed at the back of this pump, for the easier and more capacious
motion of the pump-handle, in which it moves.

This pump, which was used at the new canal of Fleet river, was 8 feet long,
and 1 foot 8 inches broad at the top, and about 8 inches broad at the bottom,
where it is inserted in the box, and threw out 8 gallons at a stroke; and 21
strokes being made in 1 minute, there was delivered about 169 gallons in each
minute.

If it be asked, why the pnmp and the bucket is not of the same breadth
throughout as high as the bucket moves ? I answer, that it cannot be allowed
of any other fashion than a taperino- one, because the celerity of the motion in
the narrowest part of the pump would thereby be obstructed in its supplying
the delivery of the water, which is thus provided for the evacuation answering
to the size of the upper or broader part of the pump.

That this kind of pump may, by the same contrivance, be made of a tree

The work above-mentioned was translated into English and German, and was deemed one of the
best chemical treatises of those days.

rOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQ/

bored through with a taper-bore, and a basket may be used at the bottom of
the pump instead of the box colander.

On the Motion of Light. By M. Romer* N° 136, p. 893.

Philosophers have been endeavouring for many years to decide, by some
experiment, whether the action of light be conveyed in an instant to distant
places, or whether it requires time. M. Romer of the Royal Academy of
Sciences has devised a way for this purpose, taken from the observations of the
first satellite of Jupiter, by which he demonstrates, that for the distance of
about 3000 leagues, which is nearly equal to the diameter of the earth, light
needs not one second of time.

Let A (fig. 13, pi. 11) be the sun, B Jupiter, C the first satellite of Jupiter,
which enters into the shadow of Jupiter, to come out of it at D; and let
EFGHLK be the earth placed at divers distances from Jupiter. — Now suppose
the earth being at L, towards the second quadrature of Jupiter, has seen the
first satellite at the time of its emersion or issuing out of the shadow at D ; and
that about 424^ hours after, viz. after one revolution of this satellite, the earth
being in K, see it returned to D ; it is manifest, that if the light require time
to traverse the interval LK, the satellite will be seen returned later to D, than
it would have been if the earth had remained at L; so that the revolution of
this satellite being thus observed by the emersions, will be retarded by so much
time, as the light shall have taken in passing from L to K; and that on the
contrary, in the other quadrature FG, where the earth by approaching goes to

* Olaus Romer, or Roemer, a noted Danish astronomer and mathematician, was born at Arhusen
in Jutland, l644. Having acqviired great skill in those sciences, when M. Picard was sent by
l/ouis XIV to make observations in the north, in l67\, he was so much pleased with this young
man, that he engaged him to return with him into France, where the king settled a pension on him,
and honoured him with the appointment of mathematical preceptor to the Dauphin : he was also
joined with Picard and Cassini, in making astronomical observations) and in l672 he was admitted a
Member of the Academy of Sciences. During the ten years he resided at Paris, he acquired great
reputation by his discoveries, and among them that above noticed, concerning the progressive motion
of light. Yet it is said he complained afterwards, that his coadjutors ran away with the honour of
many things that belonged to him. Probably this induced him to return into his own country, which
he did in 168I, where he was appointed to the office of mathematician to the King, and astronomi-
cal professor, with a large salary. He afterwards was honoured with several other offices of dignity,
particularly that of counsellor of state, and burgomaster of Copenhagen. Roemer was preparing to
publish the result of his observations when he died, in 1710, at 66 years of age. This loss however
was supplied by his pupil, Peter Horrebow, professor of astronomy at Copenhagen, who published
them, with his method of observing, in 1735, under the title of Basis Astronomicae. Several of his
pieces were also printed in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, particularly in vol. i
and X of the collection of \666.

398 . l»HlLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

meet the light, the revolutions of the immersions will appear to be shortened by
so much as those of the emersions had appeared to be lengthened. And be-
cause in 424- hours, which this satellite very near takes to make one revolution,
the distance between the earth and Jupiter in both the quadratures varies at
least 210 diameters of the earth, it follows that if for the account of every dia-
meter of the earth there were required a second of time, the light would take
3-1- minutes for each of the intervals GF, KL; which would cause near half a
quarter of an hour between two revolutions of the first satellite, one observed in
FG, and the other in KL; whereas there is not observed any sensible differ-
ence.

Yet it does not follow hence that light requires no time. For after M.
Romer had examined the thing more nearly, he found that what was not sensi-
ble in two revolutions, became very considerable in many being taken together,
and that for example, 40 revolutions observed on the side F, might be sensibly
shorter than 40 others observed in any place of the Zodiac where Jupiter may
be met with; and that in proportion of 22 for the whole interval of HE, which
is the double of the interval that is from the earth to the sun.

The necessity of this new equation of the retardment of light is established
by all the observations that have been made in the Royal Academy, and in the
Observatory, for the space of 8 years ; and it has been lately confirmed by the
emersion of the first satellite observed at Paris, the Qth of November last, at
5 o'clock, 35"^ 45^ at night, 10 minutes later than it was to be expected, by
deducing it from those that had been observed in the month of August, when
the earth was much nearer to Jupiter : which M. Romer had predicted to the
said academy from the beginning of September.

Of Damps in Mines, By Mr. Roger Moslyn. N° 136, p. 895.

The coal work at Moslyn, in Flintshire, lies in a large parcel of wood-land,
which has a great fall to the sea side, which is directly north. The dipping or
fall of the several rocks or quarries of stone that are above the coal, and con-
sequently of the coal lying under them, partly crosses the fall of the ground, so
that the dipping of it falls within a point or less of due east ; and the stratum
runs, in some 40, in others 50, or even 60 yards under the level of the sea.
This work is on a coal of 5 yards in thickness, and has been worked about 36
or 38 years. When first found it was very full of water, so that it could not be
wrought down to the bottom of the coal. But a witchet or cave was driven out
in the middle of it on a level, for gaining room to work, and drawing down
the spring of water that lies in the coal, to the eye of the pit. In the driving of
which witchet, after they had gone a considerable way under ground, and were

TOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 9Qg

in want of fresh air, the fire-damp gradually began to breed, and to appear in
crevices and slits of the coal, where water had lain before the opening of the
mine, with a small blueish flame continually moving, but not out of its first
seat, unless the workmen came and held their candle to it, and then being
weak, the blaze of the candle would drive it with a sudden hiss away to another
crevice, where it would soon after appear, blazing and moving as before. This
was the first knowledge of it in this work, which the workmen made but a sport
of, and so partly neglected it, till it had got some strength, when one morning
the first collier that went down going forwards in the witchet with his candle in
hand, the damp presently darted out violently at his candle, when the blast
struck the man down, and scorched him so as to disable him for working some
time after. Some other small warnings it gave them, which induced them to em-
ploy a man on purpose, more resolute than the rest, to go down a while before
them every morning, to chase it from place to place, and so to weaken it. His
usual manner was, to put on the worst rags he had, and to wet them well in
water, then as soon as he came within the danger of it, he fell grovelling down
on his belly and so crept forward, holding in one hand a long wand or pole,
having fixed at the end of it burning candles, which he reached by degrees to-
wards it ; then the damp would fly at them, and if it missed of putting them
out, it would quench itself with a blast, and leave an ill-scented smoke behind it.
Thus they dealt with it till they had wrought the coal down to the bottom, the
water following, and not remaining as before in the body of it among sulphure-
ous and brassy metal that is in some veins of the coal. The fire-damp was not
seen or heard of otherwise, till the latter end of the year 1675, which happened
as follows : —

After long working of this five yards coal, they discovered on the rising
grounds, where the signs of the coal and the coal itself came near the day, that
another roach of coal at 14 yards depth beneath the former, which proved to be
34- yards thick; and a profitable coal, but something more sulphureous than the
other, and extended under all the former works. As they sunk the lower part
of it many appearances of the fire-damp occurred in watery crevices of the rocks
flashing and darting from side to side of the pit, and showing rainbow-colour-
like on the surface of the water in the bottom ; but on drawing up of the water
with buckets, which stirred the air in the pit, it would leave burning, till the
colliers at work with their breath and sweat and the smoke of their candles
thickened the air in the pit, then it would appear again, and sometimes they
lighted their candles in it when they went out; and so in this pit it did no
further harm.

But on sinking a pit within the hollows or deads of the upper work, at 1 6 or

400 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

17 yards distance from the first pit; after sinking 6 or 7 yards deep the fire-
damp began to appear as formerly, accompanying the workmen still as they
sunk, still using the same means as before, sometimes blowing it out with a
blast of their mouth, at other times with their candles, or letting it blaze with-
out interruption. But as they sunk down, and the damp got still more and more
strength, they found that the want of air perpendicularly from the day was the
great cause and encourager of this damp ; for the air that followed down into
this pit, came down at the first sunk pit, at the forementioned distance, after
it had been dispersed over all the old hollows and deads of the former work, that
were filled up with noisome vapors, thick smothering fogs, and in some places
with the smothering damp itself. Nevertheless they continued sinking to 15
yards deep, plying the w^ork night and day ; but on intermission for 48 hours
and more on account of Sundays, &c. the damp gaining great strength in the
interim, when the workmen went down they could see it flashing and shooting
from side to side like sword-blades across each other, that none durst venture to
go down into the pit. Upon this they took a pole, and bound candles several
times to the end of it, which they no sooner set over the eye of the pit than
the damp would fly up with a long sharp flame, and put out the candles, leaving
a foul smoke each time behind it. Finding that these things had little efi^ect,
they bound some candles to a hook hanging at the rope's end that was used up
and down in the pit ; when they had lowered down these a little way into the
shaft of the pit, the damp came up in a full body, blowing out the candles, dis-
persing itself about the eye of the pit, and burning the men and their clothes,
and throwing them down, making a noise like the roaring of a bull, but louder,
and leaving a smoke and very noisome smell behind it. Upon this discourage-
ment these men came up, and made no further trial : after this the water that
came from it, being drawn up at the other pit, was found to be blood-warm, if
not warmer, and the crevices of the rocks where the damp lodged, were all fire-
red about Candlemas day following. In this juncture there was a cessation of
work for three days, and then the steward, thinking to fetch a compass about
from the eye of the pit that came from the day, and to bring wind by a secure
way along with him, that if it burst again it might be done without danger of
men's lives, went down and took two men along with him, which served his
turti for this time. He was no sooner down but the rest of the workmen that
had wrought there, disdaining to be left behind in such a time of danger, hasted
down after them, and one of them, more indiscreet than the rest, went head-
long with his candle over the eye of the damp-pit, at which the damp immedi-
ately catched, and flew over all the hollows of the work, with a great wind and
a continual fire, and a prodigious roaring noise. The men at first appearance

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 401

of it had most of them fallen on their faces, and hid themselves as well as they
could in the loose sleek or small coal, and under the shelter of posts; yet never-
theless the damp returning out of the hollows, and drawing towards the eye of
the pit, it came up with incredible force, the wind and fire tore most of their
clothes off their backs, and singed what was left, burning their hair, faces and
hands, the blast falling so sharp on their skin, as if they had been whipped with
rods; some that had least shelter were carried 15 or l6 yards from their first
station, and beaten against the roof of the coal and sides of the posts, and lay
afterwards a good while senseless, so that it was long before they could hear or
find each other. As it drew up to the day-pit, it caught one of the men along
with it that was next the eye, and ascended with such a terrible crack, not un-
like but more shrill than a cannon, so that it was heard 15 miles off along with
the wind, and such a pillar of smoke as darkened all the sky for a great while.
The brow of the hill above the pit was 18 yards high, and on it grew trees 14
or 15 yards long, yet the man's body and other things from the pit were seen
above the tops of the highest trees, at least a 100 yards. On this pit stood a
horse-engine, of substantial timber and strong iron-work, on which lay a trunk
or barrel for winding the rope up and down, of above 1000 pounds weight; it
was then in motion, one bucket going down, and the other coming up full of
water. This trunk was fastened to the frame with locks and bolts of iron; yet
it was thrown up, and carried a good way from the pit; and pieces of it,
though bound with iron-hoops and strong nails, blown into the neighbouring
woods; as were also the two buckets, and the ends of the rope, after the buckets
were blown from them, stood a while upright in the air like pikes, and then
came leisurely down. The whole frame of the engine was moved out of its
place ; and the clothes, caps and hats of those men that escaped, were after-
wards found shattered to pieces, and thrown into the woods a great way from
the pit. This happened the beginning of February 1675, being a season when
other damps are scarcely felt or heard of.

Mr. Leeivenhoeck* s Letter from Delf, the ]4th of May 1677, concerning his
Observations on the Carneous Fibres of a Muscle, and the Cortical and Medullary
Part of the Brain-, also on Moxa and Cotton. N° 136, p. 899.

I took the flesh of a cow; which I cut asunder with a sharp knife, and using
a microscope I severed before my eyes the membrane from it ; by which I
plainly saw that fine membrane or film, in which these carneous fibres lie inter-
woven, and of which I speak in my former letter; where I say that those mem-

VOL. u. 3 F

402 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677.

branes are made up of so many filaments or threads, as if with our naked eye we
saw the omentum of an animal. Observing these membranes more narrowly, I
saw that they wholly and only consist of small threads running through each
other; of which some appeared to be 10, 20, and even 50 times thinner than a
hair. — Having taken off these membranes from the carneous filaments, I saw
very clearly these carneous threads, which in this piece of flesh were as thick as
a hair on the hand. Where they lay rather thick on each other, they appeared
red ; but the thinner they were spread the clearer they showed.

I have used several methods of viewing the particles of these carneous fila-
ments, and have always found that they are composed of globular parts. I have
also divided before my eye, into many small parts, very small pieces of these
carneous filaments, which pieces were several times smaller than a grain of sand;
and I have observed besides, that, when the flesh is fresh and moist, and its
globules are pressed or rubbed, they dissolve and run together, in appearance
like an oily or thick waterish matter. Which globules appearing so small, that
1 ,000,000 of them would not make one grain of gravel sand. The general
figure of these globules being roundish, but a little compressed, like a multitude
of very small blown bladders, lying on a heap.

I have examined also that membrane of the brain, which is called pia mater,
and found that it is permeated by very many small veins, besides those which
with the naked eye we see on the brain, especially having first separated the
thin membrane from the brain, under which I have seen small veins of an ad-
mirable and incredible fineness, and as far as I was able to discern they consist
of exceedingly thin filaments. — I have further observed, that the said veins which
thus run through the thin membrane, disseminate their ramifications through
the brain, after the manner as vines lying upon the earth shoot roots into the
ground ; imagining the brain to be like the earth, and the veins like the roots
in it.

Proceeding to the parts of the brain itself, I must still say of them that they
consist of no other parts but globules ; but where the brain lay spread very thin,
cut through with a knife, as if they had been separated from each other, there
they appeared like a very clear matter resembling oil. Continuing my observations,
not only of the brains of beasts but also of fishes, and particularly of a cod-fish,
and representing it very plainly to my eye, I saw that the said oleaginous matter
had not been caused by the knife, but was a matter by itself, wherein the afore-
said globules lay. I saw moreover, but most plainly in the brain of a cod-fish,
that the said oleous matter consisted of yet much smaller globules than the
other. — ^The former or larger globules of the brain I judged about the size of
those which I formerly said the blood was made up of, which render the blood

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 403

red. And these greater globules which compose the brain, are very irregular
in respect of what those of the blood are.

I remember that having formerly observed the brain of a duck, I then judged
that the appearance was caused only by the close union which the globules had
to each other, and which changed into threads by a little stretching. But con-
tinuing my observations for almost a whole month together, I have seen plainly
the very great number of exceedingly small veins running through the brain; of
which I could not at first assure myself in the brains of beasts that they were
indeed veins, because they are difficult to discern: but coming to observe the
brains of cod-fish, I plainly saw those numerous vessels or veins which were
very clear, disseminating themselves by their small branchings, and being 15 or
20 times finer than a single thread of a silkworm. These small vessels or veins
I have seen in great numbers in a part of the brain not larger than a grain of
sand : besides I saw vessels filled with blood, or appearing red ; as also vessels
that had the thickness of a single thread of a silkworm and very clear. Pur-
suing these observations about the brains of beasts, I was able very plainly to
represent to myself the vessels abovementioned ; and I could not without great
admiration behold them, partly by reason of their great number, partly of their
extraordinary subtlety; so that if one of the red blood globules were divided into
8 parts, and were of a firm substance, it could not pass any of these small
vessels. And the oftener I repeated my observations the plainer I could see
those manifold little vessels with their ramuscles, which were all very feeble,
and by the least touch broke asunder.

Among the said globules, of which the brain partly consists, I have seen
blood globules, which may plainly be discerned from the brain-globules, especi-
ally by the perfect roundness which the blood globules had. These blood
globules I imagined came out of the sanguineous vessels which run through the
brain, and had been cut in pieces by the knife.

Between the cortical and medullary part of the brain I can see little or no
difference, especially when I represent them before me very thin : only this I
noted, that the little veins or vessels which ran through the cortex were of a
dark and brown colour, whereas those in the medulla were clearer and more
transparent.

I have seen in the brain, and most in the cortical part, such small sanguine-
ous red vessels, which came out of larger ones, that I cannot comprehend how
the globules could pass through them ; and when we see the blood globules
single, they have little or no colour, whereas on the contrary the blood in these
small veins was yet red : and the red colour even penetrated through the veins,
and coloured the neighbouring parts of the brain red.

3 F 2

404 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

I have also observed the spinal marrow of a calf^ pullet, sheep, and cod-fish;
•which I have found to consist of no other parts than those of the brain ; yet
with this difference, that besides the globules in the brain, there lay in the spinal
marrow a great number of shining oleaginous globules of divers sizes, some of
them 50 times larger than others ; and those also very soft and fluid. These
spinal marrows were also furnished with exceedingly thin and manifold small
veins or vessels ; and besides these very small veins, there ran up and down along
these spinal marrows brown filaments, thinner than the hair of the head. I
perceived that each filament was not one single vessel by itself, but that each of
them consisted of divers very small threads or vessels, lying by each other, be-
tween which threads there lay very clear vessels of the fineness of a single silk-
worm thread.

Lately being at the house of M. Huygens, he showed me some of that moxa,
which by burning it upon any gouty part removes the gout. This moxa agrees in
shape with cotton: for as there is no other difterence between hair and wool, than
that hair is coarser and longer than wool, both being made up of globules, and
they being clear about the rounder end; so little difference is there between the
moxa and cotton, for they have both two flat sides. Such a shape has also the
roughness that is found lying within, against the red bark of a chesnut; only
with this difference, that that of moxa is much thinner than that of cotton, and
that of cotton thinner than that of the chesnut. I have put some of the moxa
on fine post-paper, and some cotton likewise, after I had somewhat cut it asunder
with scissars, that so by its being shorter the fire might the better pass from
one part to the other. The burnings caused on the paper by both were very
near alike ; and I concluded, that if the burning had any effect in the gout, it
proceeded not from any peculiar quality in the moxa, but only from the burning
itself; and that if the burning were made with cotton it would produce as good
effects as if made with moxa.

Having considered the saying of surgeons, that cotton is fiery and malignant
if any wound be dressed with it; I have found, that that firiness or malignity
consists in this, that cotton having two flat sides, and consequently every part
of it two sharp sides, which being thinner than globules that make up the
earneous filaments, and being also stiffer than the globular flesh ; it happens,
that cotton being laid upon a wound, not only the globules of the yet sound
flesh are annoyed by the sharp sides of it, but also the new matter which is
conveyed to make new flesh, and is yet softer than the flesh already made, is
the more easily cut asunder and dissolved; whereas, on the contrary, linen
rags having roundish parts, and many of them lying firm together, and so
making up a greater body, do not so wound the globular parts of the flesh.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTION*. 405

Description of a curious Celestial Globe, showing the apparent Motions, from East
to fVest, and from JVest to East, of the Sun, Moon, and fixed Stars. Made
by M. Didier LAlleman, Watchmaker at Paris. N° 136, p. 905.

The size of this globe is only of 4 inches diameter. The body is of bur-
nished steel, where all the figures of the constellations are designed in silver-
colour, but the stars themselves of all magnitudes are put on in embossed gold.
The circles of the longitude of the stars which separate the signs, and which
come from the poles of the Zodiac, are marked by gold- wires ; as also the
equator, the tropics, and the poplar circles.

This globe moves from east to west in 24 hours ; showing the sun exactly
to rise and set as in the great world; also the moon, with the stars of the con-
stellations ; likewise how the sun of this globe comes to his meridian, with an
admirable regularity. Here also it is seen, that every day the sun sensibly
passes one degree from west to east, which is its own proper motion finished
by him in a year, and thereby describing to us the inequality of days and nights.
Also every day the mean motion of the moon from west to east, how she
increases according as she removes from the sun, so tliat it shows visibly the
first quarter of the moon, the end of the second quarter, which is the full;
then the third quarter which is the last quadrature; and lastly, her conjunction
with the sun. And thus she is seen to finish every month her synodical
course; and by her diurnal motion of 24 hours she shows the flux and reflux
of the sea, or high and low water.

The meridian serves for a needle, to show the hours which are marked on
the Zodiac, where the sun moves regularly, which has two main rays, one
going directly northward, the other southward. That of the north marks
the way or degree which the sun makes from west to east, on the signs of
the Zodiac, and on a circle of silver, where the 36o degrees of the circle are
marked. The other ray, of the south, marks on another circle of silver the
days of the month, where the 365 days are noted.

This Globe may generally serve for the whole world, as it can be put to all
the elevations of the pole. There is but one great spring, the primum mobile,
which puts all the rest in motion. It is wound up by the antarctic- pole ; and
by the arctic-pole, the movement may be accelerated or retarded.

A Description of the Diamond Mines, as it was presented by the Earl Marshal of
England, to the Royal Society. N° 136, p. QoT .

The parts of the world containing diamonds, are the island Borneo, and the
continent of India on both sides the Ganges : Pegu is reported to have several

406 rHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO K)//.

mines;* but the king contents himself with his mines of rubies, sapphires, to-
passes, emeralds, gold, silver, brass, tin, and lead, and several other com-
modities his country affords, in great plenty, rather than to suffer new inquiries
to be made, lest the discovery of such an additional treasure should invite
some of his neighbours, more potent, to invade him.

The diamond-mines in Coromandel are generally near rocky hills or moun-
tains ; a great range of which hills begins near Cape Comorin, extending in
breadth about 50 English miles, and running in length quite through Bengala.
The kingdoms of Golconda and Visiapore, have mines sufficient to furnish all
the world plentifully with diamonds; but their kings permit digging only in
some places, lest they should become too common, and lest it should tempt
invaders of the country.

In the kingdom of Golconda are 23 mines now employed, or that have been
so lately. Colure was the first mine used in this kingdom, Golconda. The
earth is somewhat yellowish, not unlike the colour of gravel dried; but whiter
in some places, where it abounds in smooth pebbles, much like some of those
of the gravel-pits in England. They used to find great numbers in the vein,
if it may properly be so called, the diamonds not lying in continued clusters,
but frequently so very scattering, that sometimes in the space of -i- of an acre
of ground, digged between 2 or 3 fathoms deep, there has nothing been
found ; especially in the mines that afford large stones, lying near the surface
of the earth, and about 3 fathoms deep ; deeper they could not dig for
water ; it being in a vale near a river.

The diamonds found in these mines are well shaped, many of them pointed,
and of a good lively white water ; but it also produces some yellow ones, some
brown, and of other colours. They are of ordinary sizes, from about six in a
mangelin,-}- to five or six mangelins, each; some of 10, 15, 20, they find but
rarely. They have frequently a bright and transparent coat, inclining to a
greenish colour, though the heart of the stone be purely white; but the veins
of these mines are almost worn out.

The mines of Codawillikul, Malabar, and Buttepallam, consist of a reddish
earth, inclining to an orange-colour, with which it stains the clothes of the
labourers that work in it. They dig about 4 fathoms deep. They afford stones
generally of an excellent water, and crystalline skin; being of smaller sizes
than those of Colure, Ramiah, Gurem, and Muttampellee, and have a yellowish

* Since this account was written, diamonds have been found on the continent of America al«!o,
and particularly in the Brasils.

•J- A mangelin is four grains in weight ; says Linschoten. — Orig.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 407

earth, like Colure ; their stones like those of the two former mines, but mixed
with many of a blue water.

The next mine is Currure, the most famous of them all, and most ancient. In
it have been found diamonds of a seize weight, which is about Q ounces troy, or
81-L pagos weight. It is only employed by the king for his own private use: the
diamonds that are found in it are very well spread, and large stones, it yields few or
none small. They have generally a bright skin, which inclines to a pale greenish
colour, but within are purely white. The soil is reddish as many of the others.
About 60 or 70 years ago, when it was under the government of the
Hindoo, and several persons permitted to adventure in digging, a Portuguese
gentleman went thither from Goa, and having spent in mining a great sum of
money to the amount of 100,000 pagos, and converted every thing he brought
with him, even to his clothes into money, while the miners were at work for
the last day's expence, he had prepared a cup of poison, resolving, if that
night he found nothing, to drink his last with the conclusion of his money ;
but in the evening the workmen brought him a very fair spread stone of 20
pagos weight.

Not far from Currure are the mines of Lattawaar and Ganjeeconta, which
are in the same soil as Currure, and afford stones not unlike: but Lattawaar
yields many representing the great end of a razor-blade, thin on one side and
thick on the other, very white and of an excellent water ; but the best of the
mine is worn out, and Ganjeeconta employed only for the king's private use.

Jonagerre, Pirai, Dugulle, Pui-willee and Anuntapellee, consist also of red
earth, and afford many large stones ; part of them of a greenish water ; but
the most absolute mines are of Wazzergerre and Munnemurg, the others rather
representing pits than mines ; for there they sink through high rocks till they
go so far below their basis, that they can go no further for water, in some
places 40 or 50 fathoms deep. The surface of the rocks consist of hard, firm,
white stone, into which they cut a pit like a well, of about 4 or 5, in some
places 6 feet deep, before they come to a crust of a mineral stone, like the
mineral of iron ; when they fill the hole with wood, and keep there as hot a
fire as they can for 2 or 3 days, till they think it sufficiently heated ; then they
pour in water till they have quenched it, which also slakes and mollifies both
stone and mineral ; both being cold, they dig again, take out all the crumbled
stuff, and dig up what they can besides, before they heat it anew ; the crust
seldom is thicker than 3 or 4 feet, after which they come to a vein of earth,
that usually runs under the rock 2 or 3 furlongs ; sometimes much further :
this they dig all out and search, and if their first attempt prove successful, they
go to work again, digging as deep as they can, till they come to water ; for
the drawing whereof, wanting the help of engines known in Europe, they can

408 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I677.

go no deeper, although the vein lies lower. All the lumps of the mineral they
break in pieces, and often find diamonds enclosed in them. The earth they
dig out is red : many large stones are found here ; the smallest about 6 in a
mangelleen. They are of mixed waters, but the most part good, only of dis-
agreeable shapes, many cragged pieces of stones, some as if they had been
parts of very large ones, others with pieces broken ofF.

In Langumboot they dig as they do at Wazzergerree and Munnemurg ; the
rock is not altogether so solid, but the earth and stones it produces much alike.
Wootoor lies near Currure, and affords stones of a like magnitude, shapes and
waters. It is employed only for the king's use: and singular, in that its dia-
monds are found in black earth.

Muddemurg far exceeds all the rest for diamonds of a delicate shape, water,
and bright transparent coat ; yet it has also many veiny ones, but those likewise
of so curious shape and water, that it is difficult to discover them from the
good, especially the small ones. It produces stones of divers magnitudes, from
10 and 12 in a mangelleen, to 6 or 7 mangelleens each, besides some large
ones. The earth is red, but seated in the woods, and the water so bad, that
to all, except the people bred there, it presently occasions fevers and destroys
abundance, insomuch that it is forsaken. Yet it has been more profitable
than any of the rest, the vein frequently lying near the superficies of the earth,
seldom running deep, and is better furnished than any other yet discovered.

Mellwillee, or the New Mine, has its earth very red, and many of the stones
found there are generally well-shaped, their size from 5 or 6 in a mangelleen
to those of 14 or 15 each, and some larger; but greatest numbers of the
middle size. Most of them have a thick dull skin, inclining to a yellowish
water, not altogether so strong and lively as of the other mines; very few of
them of a crystalline water and coat. They are reported to be apt to flaw in
splitting. Several that promise by their seeming whiteness when rough, dis-
cover their deceitfulness after passing the mill, and too often have a yellowish
tincture.

Visiapore is known to contain mines enclosing stones as large and good as
those of Golconda ; but the king, for reasons already given, makes use but of
the meanest : whereby, as Golconda is famous for the largeness of those it
affords, Visiapore is noted for the smallest ; whose mines, though they seldom
or never render an adventurer a fortune or estate at once, as sometimes those
of Golconda do, by a great stone, or several found together; yet they are
more populous and better employed, the small stones lying thicker in the earth,
so that the generality are gainers, and few but they get their expence; whereas
those of Golconda dig away a considerable fortune and find nothing, others
not their charges, and where one is a gainer, several lose.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 409

There are 15 mines employed in the kingdom of Visiapore, as follow : — In
Ramulconeta mines, in red earth, about 15 or id feet deep, they seldom find
a diamond of a mangelleen weight, but small ones, to 20 or 30 in a mangel-
leen. They are generally of an excellent crystalline water, have a bright clear
skin, inclining often to a pale greenish colour, are well shaped, but few of
them pointed. There are also found among them several broken pieces of
diamonds, by the country people called shemboes. — In Banugunnapellee, Pen-
dekull, and Moodawarum, they dig as at Ramulconeta, and in the same kind of
earth ; they also afford stones much alike, being neighbouring places. — Cummer-
willee, Paulkull, and WorkuU, are not far distant, and produce stones much alike,
out of the same coloured earth, but very small ones, even to 100 in a mangelleen.

Lungepoleur mines are of a yellowish earth, like those of Coleur, its dia-
monds are generally well shaped, globular, few pointed, of a very good crys-
talline water, and bright skins ; many of them have a thick dark grass-green
skin, some spotted also with black, that they seem all foul, yet are not so,
but within purely white and clean. Their sizes are from 2 or 3 mangelleens
downwards, but few very small. — Pootloor mines are of reddish earth, but
afford stones much like those of Lungepoleur, only smaller, under a mangel-
leen; the general sizes are of 4-, -l, 4., -^ of a mangelleen. — Punchelingull,
Shingarrampent, and Tondarpaar, are also of red earth ; their diamonds not
unlike those of Coleur, only rarely or never any large ones are found there. —
Gundepellee has the same earth with the former, and produces stones of equal
magnitude; but frequently of a pure crystalline water, in which they exceed
the former.

Donee and Gazerpellee dig both in red earth likewise, and afford stones
alike, the greatest part whereof are of good shapes and waters. They have
also many shemboes, and some of bad waters, some brown, which these people
call soft or weak watered, being esteemed of a softer and weaker body than
others, by reason they have not so much life when cut, and are subject to flaw
in splitting, and on the mill; their general product is in stones of middle sizes:
but Gazerpellee has besides many large ones, and is the only mine noted for
such in the kingdom of Visiapore.

The diamonds in all the mines are so scattered and dispersed in the earth,
and lie so thin, that in the most plentiful mines it is rare to find one in digging,
or not till they have cleared them of the cloddy matter, in which they are en-
closed; and some of those of Melwillee have the earth so fixed about them,
that till they grind them on a rough stone with sand, they cannot move it
sufficiently to discover if they are transparent. Near the place where they dig,
they make a cistern of about 2 feet high, and 6 feet over, with a small vent in

VOL. II. 3 G

410 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO lOyj,

one of the sides, about two inches from the bottom, by which it empties itself
into a little pit, made in the earth to receive small stones, if any should run
through. The vent being stopped, they fill the cistern with water, soaking
therein as much of the earth dug out of the mines, as it can conveniently
receive at a time; then they break the clods, pick out the great stones, and
stir it with shovels till the water is all muddy, the gravelly matter falling to
the bottom. Then they open the vent, letting out the foul water, and supply-
ing it with clean, till all the earthy substance be washed away, and none but
gravel remains at the bottom. Thus they continue washing till about 10 o'clock
in the fore noon, when they take the gravelly stuff they have washed, and
spread it on a place made plain and smooth, near the cistern, which being soon
dried by the heat of the sun at that time of the day, they very curiously look
it over, that the smallest bit of a stone can hardly escape them.

Some of the expertest labourers are employed in searching ; he that sets them
at work usually sitting by, and overlooking ; but it is hardly possible, especially
where many are employed, to watch them so narrowly, but that they mav steal
part of what they find, as many times some of them do, and, selling it pri-
vately, convert to their own use. If they find a large stone, they carry it not
presently to their employer, but keep on looking, having an eye on him till
they observe he takes notice of it, when with a turn of their hand they give
him a glimpse of it, but deliver it not till they have done work, and then very
privately, it being the general endeavour to conceal what they find, lest it
should come to the knowledge of the governor of the place, and he require a
share, which in the kingdom of Golconda is usually practised, without respect
to any agreement made with them.

The miners, those that employ them, and the merchants that buy the stones
of them, are generally ethnics; not a mussleman, that ever I heard of, followed
the employment. These labourers and their employers are Tellingas, com-
monly natives of or near the place. The merchants are the Banians of Guz-
zarat, who for some generations have forsaken their own country to take up
the trade, in which they have had such success, that it is now solely engrossed
by them ; who, corresponding with their countrymen in Surrat, Goa, Gol-
conda, Visiapore, Agra and Dillee, and other places in India, furnish them
all with diamonds.

The governors of the mines are also idolaters : in the king of Golconda's
dominions a tellinga brammee rents most of them, whose agreement with the
adventurer is, that all the stones they find under a pagoda weight, * are to be

* A Pagoda weight is 9 mangelleens. — Orig.

TOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 411

their own; all of that weight and above it to be his, for the king's use. But
although this agreement be signed and sealed, he minds not at all the perform-
ance thereof, but endeavours to engross all the profit to himself by tyrannically
squeezing both merchants and miners. Both merchant and miner go generally
naked, only a poor rag about their middle, and a sash on their heads ; they
dare not wear a coat, lest the governor should say they have thriven much,
are rich, and so enlarge his demands on them. The wisest, when they find a
great stone, conceal it till they have an opportunity, and then with wife and
children run all away into the Visiapore country, where they are secure. '

The government in the Visiapore country is better, their agreement observed,'
taxes easier, and no such impositions on provisions; the merchants go hand-
somely clad, amongst whom are several persons of considerable estates, which
they are permitted to enjoy peaceably, by reason whereof their mines are much
more populous and better employed than those of Golconda.

It is observable, that notwithstanding the agreement with the adventurers
of the mines, that all stones above a certain weight shall be for the king's use;
yet in the metropolis of either kingdom, as the cities of Golconda and Visia-
pore are, there is no seizure, all stones being free. ^

An Account of some Books. N" 136, p. 917.

I. The Primitive Origination of Mankind, considered and examined according to
the Light of Nature \ by the Honourable Sir Mattheiu Hale,^ Knight, late Lord
Chief Justice of his Majesty's Court of King's Bench, London, 1 677) infoL

The worthy and learned author of this book principally considers these
particulars :

I. That according to the light of nature and right reason the world was not
eternal, but had a beginning. U. That, if there could be any imaginable
doubt of the world's having a beginning, yet by the necessary evidence of

* Sir Matthew Hale, a learned writer and judge, in the times of Charles I. Cromwell, and
Charles II. was bom 1609, at Aldersley in Gloucestershire, and educated at Magdalen Hall,
Oxford. He conducted himself with so much prudence during the civil wars, and after, that he
was esteemed by both parties, and enjoyed honourable employments under them. In l675 he
resigned his office of Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and died a few months afterwards.
Sir Matthew was a very learned man, a sound lawyer, an upright judge, and an exemplary christian.
His writings are numerous, on theology, philosophy, and on law. The principal of which, besides
the work above noticed, were, 1. Contemplations, moral and divine, 8vo. 2. Observations on the
Experiments of Torricelli, 8vo. 3. Essay on the Gravitation of Fluids. 4. Observations on the
principal Natural Motions, particularly Rarefaction and Condensation. 5. The Life and Death of
Pomponius Atticus. 6. Pleas of the Crown. 7. History of the Royal Statutes, &c. All of which
are much esteemed. '.yWuOfa mrmf^msm

3 G 2

412 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16/7.

natural light it appears, that mankind had a beginning, and that the successive
generations of men were in their original ex non genitis. III. That those great
philosophers who asserted this origin of mankind ex non genitis, both ancient
and modern, and rendered it by hypotheses different from that of Moses, were
mistaken. Here the several hypotheses of Plato, Aristotle, Empedocles, Epi-
curus, Avicon, Cardan, Caesalpinus, Beregardus, and others, are examined.
IV. That the Mosaical system, as well of the creation of men as of the world
in general, abstractedly considered, without relation to the divine inspiration
of the writer, is highly consonant to reason, and on a bare rational account
highly preferable to the sentiments of those philosophers, who either thought
mankind eternal, or substituted hypotheses of his first production different from
the Mosaical.

II. Tractatus Medicus de Morbis Castrensibus Internis, Auth. Joh. Valentino
Willio, Medico Regio Castrense. Haf. 1676, in 4to.

A treatise on camp diseases, superseded by modern publications on the same
subject.

III. Hebdomas Observationum de Rebus Sinicis. Auth. Andraea Mullero,
GreifFenhagio. Colon. Branden. A. 1674.

This tract contains, 1 . An epitome of the history of China, both of the most
ancient and the most modern. 2. A conjecture that the true religion and know-
ledge of God has been known in China. 3. A list of the kings of China. 4. A
representation of the famous Chinese herb, called Gniseng. 5. A memorable
conjunction of the planets in the time of Noah's flood. 6. A specimen of a
geographical commentary on Paulus Venetus's Oriental history. 7. Of the
weekly distribution of days, and their denomination taken from the planets, being
used among the Chinese themselves.

IV. The Curious Distillatory, &c. written originally in Latin by Joh. Sigisin.
Elsholt, and translated by T. S., M.D. Physician in ordinary to his Majesty.
Lond. 1677, in 12mo.

The author of this tract treats on the art of distilling coloured liquors, spirits,
oils, &c. from vegetables, animals, and minerals; in the doing of which he in-
termixes many experiments easy to perform, yet curious and useful, relating to
the production of colours, of consistence and heat, in divers bodies that are
colourless, fluid, and cold ; and particularly several experiments on the blood of
diseased persons, and its serum.

V. Medicina Statica, or Rules of Health, originally written by Sanctorius,*
now translated by J. D. Lond. 1676. in 12mo.

* Sanctorius Sanctorius, who acquired so much celebrity by the treatise above-mentioned, was
born at Capo d'Istria, and studied at Padua } where he afterwards obtained a medical professorship.

Vol,. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. '413

This ingenious and useful tract, now appearing in English, is known to have
been long since published in Latin by the famous Sanctorius, whose design in
it was, by a certain balance to satisfy intelligent persons, who desire to take care
of their health, that those things are true which he has taught concerning the
weight of insensible perspiration, and its causes, time, advantages and disad-
vantages, excess and defect ; as also touching the air, meat and drink, sleep
and waking, exercise and rest, and the affections of the mind.

VI. Systema Horticulturae, containing in English the Art of Gardening, in
three Books. By J. W., Gent. 8vo.

Treating of the excellency, situation, soil, form, walks, &c. of gardens.
Secondly, of all sorts of trees planted for ornament or shade, winter-greens,
flower-trees, and flowers. Thirdly, of the kitchen-garden, and of the great
variety of plants propagated for food, and for any culinary uses. Illustrated
with sculptures, representing the form of gardens, according to some of the
newest models.

The Manner of Hatching Chickens at Cairo. By Mr. John Graves, late Pro-
fessor of Astronomy at Oxford-, and communicated by Sir George Ent, late
President of the College of Physicians y London. N° 137, P- 923.

The people begin in the midst of January to heat the ovens, employing every
morning 100 kintars, or pounds weight of camel's, or of Buffalo's dung, and

He died at Venice in \6s6, aged 75. The Medicina Statica is a work of much originality, being the
result of experiments prosecuted for many years with great perseverance and exactness, (by means of
a new contrived weighing machine, or statical chair) and it must be confessed tliat many of the pro-
positions or aphorisms relative to the free exit of the insensible perspiration as a preservative of health,
and to its deficiency or suppression as a cause of disease, are incontrovertible. At the same time it
cannot be denied that he assigned to the excretory fiinction of the skin an influence by much too
powerful and extended, not duly taking into consideration what dependency health and disease have,
upon the various other excretions ; nor how much the deficiency of one kind of excretion (for in-
stance that of the insensible perspiration) is often^ compensated by an increase or excess of some other.
It is therefore not surprising that the doctrine of Sanctorius should have met with opponents, among
the earliest and most conspicuous of whom may be mentioned Hippolytus Obicius, a physician of
Ferrara, and author of an attack entitled, Staticomastix sive Staticae Med. Demolition in which, how-
ever, there is more of satire than of argument. Oh the other hand, the Medicina Statica has not
been without its advocates, among whom must be numbered . Lister, and the learned de Gorter.
Sanctorius had a turn for mechanical contrivances ; and besides the statical chair with which he made
his experiments on perspiration, he invented an instrument for extracting the stone from the bladdery
an instrument for measuring the pulse ; a thermometer for ascertaining the degrees of heat in disor-
dered states of the body; a pensile bed; a bathing apparatus, &c. The other works published by
this author are lib. xv. de Method. Vitand. errorum qui in arte Medica contingunt, fol. l602; also
Commentaries upon Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna; and a book De Remed. inventione, 4to. l631.
His collected writings amount to 4 vols. 4to.

414 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677-8.

the like quantity at night, till the midst of February. About which time the
ovens are so hot, that a person can hardly endure to lay his hand on the walls.
After this, they put the eggs into the ovens, to hatch the chickens, which they
continue successively till the end of May.

The eggs are first put upon mats in the lower ovens, which are on the
ground ; 7 or 8000 eggs in number, and laid only double, one upon another.
In the ovens above these lower, the fire is made in long hearths or little chan-
nels, having some depth to receive the fire, from whence the heat is conveyed
into the lower ovens before-mentioned. The eggs which are directly under
these hearths, lie treble one upon another ; the rest, as was said, only double.
At night when they renew the fires in the hearths above-mentioned, they then
remove the eggs that were directly undermost, lying treble one upon another,
in the place of those which lay on the sides only double, and these being now
removed, they lay treble under the hearth, because the heat is there greater
than on the sides where the eggs are only double. These eggs continue in the
lower ovens 14 days and nights; afterwards they remove them into the upper
ovens, which are just over the lower. In these, there being now no more fire
used, they turn all the eggs 4 times every day or 24 hours. The fire in the
upper ovens, when the eggs are placed in the lower, is thus proportioned: The
first day, the greatest fire. The second, less than the first. The third, less
again. The fourth, more than the third. The fifth, less. The sixth, more
than the fifth. The seventh, less. The eighth, more. The ninth, without
fire. The tenth, a little fire in the morning. The eleventh, they shut all the
holes with flax, &c. making no more fire ; for if they should, the eggs would
break. They take care, that the eggs be no hotter than the eye of a man,
when they are laid upon it, can well endure. The twenty- first or twenty-second
day the chickens are hatched, which the first day eat not ; the second they are
fetched away by women, who give them corn, &c.

When the chickens are hatched they put them into the lower ovens, which
are covered with mats. Under the mats is bran, to dry the chickens: and
upon the mats straw, for the chickens to stand on.

The master of the ovens has a third part of the eggs for his cost and pains,
out of which he is to make good unto the owners, who have two-thirds in
chickens for their eggs, such as may happen to be spoiled or miscarry.

The ground plot of the house and ovens is delineated according to fig. 1,
pi. 12. Here ab is a long entrance, on each side of which are 14 ovens, some-
times more, sometimes less. The bottoms and sides of those ovens which are
on the ground are all made of sun-dried bricks, upon which they put mats, and
on the mats the eggs. The tops of these ovens are fiat, and covered with sticks.

VOL. XII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 415

except two long spaces, which are made of sun-dried bricks, and are the hearths
above-mentioned, in which the fires are made to heat the eggs, lying under
them in the lower ovens. Above these lower ovens are so many others, made
of sun-dried bricks, and arched at the top. Where also there are some holes,
which are stopped with tow, &c. or left open, as they please, to govern the
heat in the ovens below.

The plan of the upper oven is according to fig. 2. Here, a, is the mouth of the
oven, opening on the long entrance ab above-mentioned, b andc entrances into
the ovens adjoining, d, e two hearths 3 or 4 inches deep, in which they make
the fire to heat this and the oven below. The depth of the lower oven is about
24- feet English. The second above 4 feet.

On Barnacles. By Sir Robert Moray. N° 137, p. 925.

In the western isles of Scotland, much of the timber wherewith the common
people build their houses, is such as the western ocean throws upon their shores.
The most common trees are fir and ash. They are usually very large, and with-
out branches ; which seem rather to have been broken or worn off, than cut ;
and they are so weather-beaten that there is no bark left on them, especially the
firs. Being in the island of Uist, I saw lying on the shore a cut of a large fir-
tree, of about 24- feet diameter, and 9 or 10 feet long; which had lain so long
out of the water, that it was very dry ; and most of the shells that had formerly
covered it were worn or rubbed off. Only on the parts that lay next the ground,
there still hung multitudes of little shells, having within them little birds per-
fectly shaped, supposed to be barnacles. The shells hung very thick and close
to each other, and were of different sizes ; they were of the colour and con-
sistence of muscle- shells, and the sides or joints of them joined with such a
kind of film as muscle-shells have, which serves them for a hinge to move upon
when they open and shut.

The figure of the barnacle-shell is here represented, fig. 3, pi. 12. It is thin
about the edges, and about half as thick as broad. Every one of the shells has
some cross seams or sutures, which, as I remember, divide it into five parts,
nearly after the manner as in the figure. These parts are fastened to each
other with such a film as muscle- shells are. These shells hang at the tree by a
neck, longer than the shell. This is of a kind of filmy substance, round and
hollow, and creased, not unlike the wind-pipe of a chicken, spreading out
broadest where it is fastened to the tree, from which it seems to draw and con-
vey the matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the shell and the
little bird within it.

4l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677-8.

This bird, in every shell that I opened, the least as well as the largest, I
found so curiously and completely formed, that there appeared nothing wanting,
as to the external parts, for making up a perfect sea-fowl : every little part ap-
pearing so distinctly, that the whole looked like a large bird seen through a
concave or diminishing glass; colour and feature being every where so clear and
neat. The little bill like that of a goose; the eyes marked; the head, neck,
breast, wings, tail, and feet, formed; the feathers every where perfectly shaped,
and blackish coloured ; and the feet like those of other water-fowl, to my best
remembrance. All being dead and dry, I did not look after the inward parts of
them. But I carried about 20 or 24 away with me. The largest I found upon
the tree was but about the size of the figure here representing them. I never
saw any of the little birds alive, nor ever met with any person that did. Only
some credible persons have assured me, they have seen some as large as their
fist.*

j4 Description of the Island Hirta. By Sir Robert Moray. N° 137, P« 9^7.

Hirta lies from Snod, in the isle of Skye, west and by north. From the
nearest land to it in the Hereisch, from whence people commonly take boat, it
lies due west, and the distance of about 50 miles. There are three islands to-
gether, Hirta, Soa, and Burra; but Hirta only is inhabited. The other two
are excellent pasturage for sheep, every sheep there having two Iambs every
year.

Burra is inaccessible, except to the men of Hirta only, on account of the
difficulty of landing ; there being but about a foot broad of a landing place, and
that only to be attempted when the boat rises. For their usual way is, when
they come near the rock they turn the boat, and set the side to the shore, two
men, one at each end of the boat, with two long poles keeping it off, that the
waves may not dash it too violently against the rock, when it rises; at which
time only he who is to land makes his attempt. If he miss his landing place he
falls into the sea, and the rest of the people haul him aboard by a small rope
fastened about his middle, to prevent that danger. But when he safely lands,
which they seldom miss to do, the rest of his fellows land one by one ; except

• In the present advanced state of natural history, it is almost unnecessary to observe that the
supposed birds contained in the shells here mentioned were no other than tlie proper inhabiting ani-
mals belonging to the Linnaean genus lepas among tlie testacea; the animal itself resembling the
genus triton, having several pair of curved and jointed feelers or tentacula, which, from their pecu-
liar disposition and fringed edges, bear a rude general resemblance to the tail of a bird. The species
here meant is the lepas anatifera of Linnaeus.

VOL. XII.5 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 41 f

SO many as they leave to attend their little- boat, which is commonly of six
oars.

If there be any strangers, as many go from the nearest islands in summer,
they must be tied about the middle with a strong rope; and when the men of
Hirta have climbed up to the top of the rock, which is above 24 fathoms, be-
fore they set their foot on grass, they haul up the strangers to them with the
ropes. When they have gathered as many eggs, and killed as many fowls as
will load their boat, they lower all down into the boat, and the ablest fellow is
always left behind, who, having none to help him, must throw himself into
the sea, and so recover the boat. Burra lies from Hirta about six miles north-
ward.

- Soa lies near Hirta, on the south-west. In this, except fowls, there is no-
thing remarkable but a creek, frequented by large seals. The people are sq
daring, that they go in their boat, about four of them, in that narrow passage,
to kill these seals with poles, having scarcely room for their oars, and every
where seeming to close up the mouth of the passage. If the wind change
during their being there, it is not possible to save man or boat. There are se-
veral rocks rising out of the sea amongst these islands, which the people of
Hirta call stacks: some 10, 20, or 24 fathoms above water, without any grass
upon them. On the round tops of the rocks a great number of fowls breed,
and in all the cliffs. Among the rest there is one called Stacka Donna, on the
top of which breeds such an abundance of fowls, that though it seems inac-
cessible, yet the men of Hirta have ventured to go thither. After they have
landed with much difficulty, a man having room but for one of his feet, he
must climb up 12 or 16 fathoms high. He then comes to a place, where having
but room for his left foot and left hand, he must leap from thence to such an-
other place before him ; which, if he hit right, the rest of the ascent is easy,
and with a small cord, which he carries with him, he hauls up a rope, by which
all the rest come up. But if he misses that footstep, as often happens, he falls
into the sea, and the rest draw him by the small cord. After sitting still till
he be a little refreshed, he then tries it again ; for every one there is not able to
undertake it.

Hirta island is 2 miles in length, accounted Five-penny-land. In it are 10
families. The men seldom grow old; and seldom was it ever known that any
man died in his bed there, but was either drowned or broke his neck. The
men are strong, large, and well complexioned. Their food is only young
fowls and eggs; their drink whey and water. They are much given to keeping
of holy days, having a number of little chapels, where sometimes they watch
whole nights, making merry together with their offerings.

VOL. II. 3 H

418 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1677-8;

The chief employment of their women is to harrow the land, which they
must do when their husbands are climbing for fowls.

Their ordinary way of dividing the land, is one halfpenny to every family.
The rocks also are divided, such and such on every halfpenny. And there is a
kind of officer left by the master of the island, who governs in his absence, and
so regulates, that the best climbers and the worst are mixed together, that so
none of the land be unlaboured; that is, that all the shelves of the highest rocks
be searched for eggs.

The way of their climbing is thus ; they go two and two with a long rope,
not made of hemp, but of cow-hides salted, and the thongs cut round about,
and plaited six or nine fold. Each end of the rope is tied about each one of
their middle, and he that is foremost goes till he comes to a safe standing, the
other standing firm all that time to keep him up, in case his feet should have
slipped : when the foremost is come to a safe standing ; then the other goes,
either below or above him, where his business is; and so they watch time
about; seldom any of them being lost when this is observed. — When any couple
is to be married, the aforesaid officer brings them to one of their chapels, and
administers an oath to them ; and thus they are married.

Their children, about the age of 15 or l6, come with the master of the isle to
the Hereisch island, and are there baptized.

An ordinary way of killing the fowls in the mist is this, some of these fellows
lie beside the door of the little houses they have in their islands, flat upon their
backs, and open their breasts ; which when the fowls perceive, they perch
upon them, and are presently taken. And thus hundreds are killed in one
night.

Observations on a Cameleon, By Dr. Jonathan Goddard, late Professor of
Physic at Gresham College, London.'* N° 137, p. 930.

There is nothing of sufficient importance in this paper to justify reprinting it.

Account of the Iron JVorks in the Forest of Dean. By Henry Powle, Esq.

N° 137, p. 931.

The forest of Dean, comprehending that part of Glocestershire between the
rivers Wye and Severn, consists generally of a stiff clay. The country is full of
hills, but no where high, and rarely of a steep ascent. Between them run
many little springs of a more brownish colour than ordinary waters, and often
leaving in their passage tinctures of rust. The ground is naturally inclined to

* See N° 49, p. 369, vol. i.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTI0N8. 410

wood, especially hasel and oak; of which last sort it has produced formerly very
stately timber ; though now almost totally destroyed by the increase of the iron
works. — On the surface of the earth in many places, lie abundance of rough
stones, some of them of great bulk; but where the mines are sunk, they rather
meet with veins of scaly stone than hard and solid rocks. Within the forest is
found great plenty of coal and iron-ore; and in some places red and yellow ochre;
which are all the minerals that are yet discovered there. — ^The iron-ore is found
in great abundance in most parts of the forest : differing both in colour, weight
and goodness. The best, which they call their brush-ore, is of a bluish colour;
very ponderous and full of little shining specks, like grains of silver. This
affords the greatest quantity of iron; but being melted alone, it produces a
metal very short and brittle, and therefore not so fit for common use.

To remedy this inconvenience they make use of a material which they call
cinder, being only the refuse of the ore after the metal has been extracted ;
which being mingled with the other in a due quantity, gives it that excellent
temper of toughness, for which this iron is preferred before any that is brought
from foreign parts.

To understand this rightly, it is to be noted, that in former times when their
works were few, and their vent small, they made use of no other bellows but
such as were moved by the strength of men : by reason whereof their fires were
much less intense than in the furnaces they now employ. So that having in
them melted down only the principal part of the ore; they rejected the rest as
useless, and not worth their charge. This they call their cinder, which is now
found in an inexhaustible quantity through all parts of the country, where any
former works have stood.

After they have provided their ore, their first work is to calcine it : which is
done in kilns, much after the fashion of ordinary lime-kilns. These they fill up
to the top with coal and ore, stratum super stratum, until it be full ; and so
setting fire to the bottom they let it bum till the coal be wasted, and then re-
new the kilns with fresh ore and coal, in the same manner as before. This is
done without fusion of the metal, and serves to consume the more drossy parts
of the ore, and to make it friable, supplying the beating and washing which are
used for other metals. — From hence it is carried to the furnaces, which are
built of brick or stone, about 24 feet square on the outside, and near 30 feet in
height; within not above 8 or 10 feet over, where it is widest, which is about
the middle ; the top and bottom having a narrower compass, much like the
shape of an egg.

Behind the furnace are placed two huge pair of bellows, whose noses meet at
^ little hole near the bottom. These are compressed together by certain but-

3h 2

420 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO l677-8.

tons, placed on the axis of a very large wheel, which is turned about by water,
in the manner of an overshot- wheel. As soon as these buttons are slid off, the
bellows are raised again by the counterpoise of weights; by which they are made
to play alternately, the one giving its blast all the time the other is rising.

At first the furnaces are filled with ore and cinder, intermixed with fuel,
which in these works is always of charcoal ; laying them hollow at the bottom,
that they may more easily take fire : but after they are once kindled, the mate-
rials run together into a hard cake or lump, which is sustained by the shape of
the furnace, and through this the metal as it melts, trickles down into the re-
ceivers, which are placed at the bottom, where there is a passage open, at
which they take away the scum and dross, and let out the metal as they see
occasion. — Before the mouth of the furnace lies a great bed of sand, in which
are made furrows of the shape into which they intend to cast the iron. Into
these when the receivers are full they let in the metal ; which is made so very
fluid by the violence of the fire, that it not only runs to a considerable distance,
but continues boiling for a good while.

After these furnaces are once at work, they keep them constantly employed
for many months together, never suffering the fire to slacken night nor day ;
but still supplying the waste of the fuel and other materials with fresh, poured in
at the top.

Several attempts have been made to introduce the use of sea-coal in these
works, instead of charcoal ; the former being to be had at an easier rate than
the latter; but hitherto they have proved ineffectual. The workmen finding by
experience, that a sea-coal fire how vehement soever, will not penetrate the
most fixed parts of the ore, and so leaving much of the metal unmelted.

From these furnaces they bring their sows and pigs of iron, as they call them,
to their forges. These are of two sorts, though standing together under the
same roof: one they call their finery, the other the chafery. Both of them are
open hearths, on which they place great heaps of sea-coaj, and behind them
bellows, like to those of the furnaces, but not near so large. Into the finery
they first put the pigs of iron, placing three or four of them together behind the
fire, with a little of one end thrust into it. Where softening by degrees they
stir and work them with long bars of iron, till the metal runs together into a
round mass or lump, which they call a half-bloom. This they take out, and
giving it a few strokes with their sledges, they carry it to a great weighty ham-
mer, which is raised by the motion of a water-wheel, where applying it dexte-
rously under the blows, they presently have it beaten out into a thick short
square. This they put into the finery again, and heating it red hot, they work
it out under the same hammer, till it comes into the shape of a bar in the

TOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4M

middle, with two square knobs in the ends. Lastly, they give it other heatings
in the chafery, and more workings under the hammer, till they have brought it
into bars of several shapes and sizes, fit for sale. And if they omit any one
process, it will be sure to be deficient in toughness, which is accounted its per-
fection : though for several purposes, as for the backs of chimneys, hearths of
ovens, and the like, they have a sort of cast-iron, which they take out of the
receivers of the furnace in great ladles, and pour it into moulds of fine sand t
but this sort of iron is so very brittle, that being heated, with one blow of a
hammer it breaks all to pieces.

The Method of making Cermse. By Sir Philiberto Femati. N° 137, P- 935.

Pigs of clean and soft lead are cast into thin plates, a yard long, 6 inches
broad, and as thin as the back of a knife. These are artfully rolled round in
such a manner that the surfaces no where touch; for where they do, no cerusse
grows. — Thus rolled they are put each in a pot, just capable to hold one, sus-
tained by a little bar from the bottom, that it come not to touch the vinegar,
which is put into each pot, to effect the corrosion. — ^Next a square bed is made
of new horse-dung, large enough to hold 20 pots abreast, and so to make up
the number of 400 in one bed. — ^Then each pot is covered with a plate of lead ;
and lastly all with boards as close as possible. This repeated four times, makes
what is called one heap, containing l600 pots.

After three weeks the pots are taken up, the plates unrolled, laid upon a
board, and beaten with battledoors till all the flakes come off: which if good,
prove thick, hard and weighty : if otherwise, fuzzy and light ; or sometimes
black and burned, if the dung prove not well ordered : and sometimes there
will be none. — From the beating-table the flakes are carried to the mill ; and
with water ground between millstones, until they be brought to almost an in-
palpable fineness. After which it is moulded into smaller parcels, and exposed
to the sun to dry, till it be hard, and so fit for use.

Sometimes two pots alike ordered, and set one by each other, without any
possible distinction of advantage, shall yield the one thick and good flakes, the
other few and small or none. — Sometimes also the pots are taken up all dry, and
so prove then the best : sometimes again they are taken up wet. — It some-
times happens too that the plates that cover the pots yield better and thicker
flakes than the rolls within. And the outsides next to the planks larger and
better than the insides next to the rolls, and to the spirits that first arise from
the vinegar.

The accidents happening to the workmen, are immediate pain in the stomach.

f

424 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 677-8.

with exceeding contortions in the guts, and costiveness that yields not to
cathartics, and hardly to often repeated clysters : best to lenitives, oil of olives,
or strong new wort. They also fall into acute fevers, and asthmas, or short-
ness of breath. And these are effected principally by the mineral steams in the
casting of the plates of lead, and by the dust of the flakes; also by the steams
coming from the heaps, when the pots are taking up. Then with a vertigo or
dizziness in the head, with continual great pain in the brows, blindness, stupi-
dity, and paralytic affections; loss of appetite, sickness, and frequent vomitings,
generally of pure phlegm, sometimes mixed with choler, to the extreme weaken-
ing of the body. And these chiefly in those that have the charge of grinding,
and over the drying place.

Account of Two Books. N° 137, p. 936.

I. The True Intellectual System of the Universe. The First Part. Where-
in all the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is confuted, and its impossibility
demonstrated. By R. Cudworth, D.D.* London, 1678, in fol.

The design of the author is to demonstrate these three things: 1. That there
is an omnipotent intelligent Being presiding over all. — 1. That this Being has
an essential goodness and justice : the differences of moral good and evil not
being by will and law only, but also by nature ; according to which the Deity
acts and governs mankind. — 3. That necessity not being intrinsical to the na-
ture of every thing, but men having such a power over their own actions, as to
render them accountable for the same ; there is therefore a distributiv^e justice
running through the world.

* Dr. Ralph Cudworth was born l6l7, at Aller, in Somersetshire. He studied at Cambridge,
where while he was tutor he had Sir Wm. Temple among his pupils. Here also he held various
other important and lucrative offices, as, the Hebrew professorship, and successively the mastership
of Clarehall and Christ's College ; and his church preferments were the rectory of North Cadbury,
the vicarage of Ashwell, and a prebendary in the cathedral of Gloucester, He died at Cambridge
1688, aged 71, leaving among other children, a daughter named Damaris, who distinguished her-
self by her learning. Dr. Cudworth was well acquainted with the learned languages, the belles
lettres, and antiquities ; he was a sound divine, a deep metaphysician, and a good mathematician.
In philosophy he followed the mechanical principles ; and in metaphysics, the ideas and opinions of
Plato. His chief works, besides the Intellectual System against Infidels, aboveraentioned, were —
1. A Discourse on the Lord's Supper, l642. 2. A Sermon against Absolute Reprobation, 3. A
Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. The Intellectual System was translated into
Latin by Mosheim, with notes and dissertations, Jena, 1733, 2 volumes folio, and since at Leyden,
2 volumes 4to, In 1743 also came out a complete edition of the Intellectual System, with some
additional pieces, edited by Dr, Birch ; and an abridgement has been published by Thomas Wise, in
2 volumes 4to, which is esteemed.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 423

II. The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier,* Baron of Aubonne,
through Turkey, into Persia and the East Indies. London, 1678, in fol.

Some observations have before been cited out of this book ; and no further
account of it is now necessary.

On ' the Culture or Planting and Ordering of Saffron. By the Hon, Charles

Howard. N° 138, p. 945.

Saffron heads planted in a black rich sandy mold, or in a mixed sandy land,
between white and red, and only moderately rich, yields the greatest plenty of
saffron. — Plough the ground in the beginning of April, and lay it very smooth
and level. — About three weeks or a month after, spread upon every acre 20
loads of rotten dung, and plough it in. — At Midsummer plough it again, and
plant the saffron-heads in rows 3 inches distant from each other every way, and 3
inches deep. — Observe this order in planting of whole fields, whereby the heads
will lie every way 3 inches square from each other. Only paths or shallow
trenches are to be left 2 or 3 yards asunder, which serve every year to lay the
weeds to rot that are to be weeded and pared off the ground.

As soon as the heads begin to shoot or spear within the ground, which is
usually a fortnight before Michaelmas, hoe or pare the ground all over very
thin : and rake lightly all the weeds and grass very clean, lest it choak the
flowers, which will soon after appear ; and are then to be gathered, and the
saffron to be picked and dried for use. — In May the saffron-grass will be quite
withered away; after which, the weeds and grass produced may be cut or mowed
off from time to time to feed cattle till about Michaelmas, at which time the
heads will begin to spear within the ground. — Then hoe, pare and rake the
ground clean as before, for a second crop. And the like directions are to be
observed the next year for a third crop.

The Midsummer following dig up all the saffron-heads, and plant them again
in another new ground, ordered as aforesaid, wherein no saffron has been
planted, at least not within seven years. — ^The flowers are to be gathered as
soon as they come up, before they are full blown, whether wet or dry. — Pick
out the sheaves clean from the shells or flowers, and sprinkle them two or three
fingers thick, very equally on a double saffron-paper. Lay this on the hair-

• John Baptist Tavernier, a noted French traveller, was born at Paris in l605. He visited Turkey,
Persia, and the East Indies six times j and on the seventh journey, in l689, died at Moscow, being
84 years of age. He had acquired a great fortune by trading in jewels, and was ennobled by Lewis
the 14tli. His affairs however, in the latter part of his life, fell into bad condition, by the mis-
management of his nephew, to whom they were entrusted. His travels have been published in many
forms and languages. They amount to 6 volumes in 12mo«

424- PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO idjS.

cloth of the saffron-kiln, and cover it with two or more safFron-papers, a piece
of woollen cloth, or thick baize, and a cushion of canvas or sackcloth filled with
barley-straw, on which lay the kiln-board. — Put into the kiln clean, thoroughly
kindled charcoal, oven coals, or the like, keeping it so hot that you can hardly
endure your fingers between the paper and the hair-cloth. — After an hour or
more turn in the edges of the cake with a knife, and loosen it from the paper.
If it stick fast wet the outside of the paper with a feather dipped in beer, and
then dry the papers. Turn the cake, that both sides may be of a colour. —
If it stick again to the paper, loosen it, and then dry it by a very gentle heat,
with the addition of 20 or 30 pound weight laid on the kiln-board. — ^The
safFron-cake being sufficiently dried, it is fit for use, and will last a good many
years, being wrapped up and kept close.

The best saffron is that which consists of the thickest and shortest chives,
of a high red and shining colour, both without and within alike. — Saffron is
oftentimes burned, and in knots, spotted and mixed with the yellows that are
within the shells. — One acre yields at the last 12 pounds of good Saffron, one
year with another, and some years 20 pounds. — Sixteen quarters of saffron-
heads are sufficient to plant one acre.

The kiln consists of an oaken-frame, lathed on every side, 12 inches square
in the bottom, 2 feet high, and 2 feet square at the top ; upon which is nailed
a hair-cloth, and strained hard by wedges driven into the sides; a square board
and a weight to press it down, weighing about a quarter of a hundred. — The in-
sides of the kiln covered all over with the strongest potter's clay, very well
wrought with a little sand, a little more than 2 inches thick. — ^The bottom
must be lined with clay 4 or 5 inches thick, which is the hearth to lay the fire
on : and level with which is to be made a little hole to put the fire in. The
outside may be plastered all over with lime and hair.

Account of the Tin Mines in Cornwall. By Dr. Christopher Merret.

N° 138, p. 949.

The stones, from which tin is wrought, are sometimes found a foot or two
below the surface of the earth, but most usually between two walls or rocks,
and are commonly of an iron colour, of little or no affinity with the tin, and
lying in a vein or load between 4 and 18 inches broad. Sometimes there is a
rich and fat metal; sometimes hungry and starved; sometimes nothing but a
drossy substance, neither purely earth, nor stone, nor metal; but a little re-
sembling the rejected cinders of a smith's forge : and where this is found the
miners judge the metal to be ripe.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS* 425

The pits are 40, 50, or sometimes 6o fiithoms deep and more. The load
being very rich and good, above that is about 10 fathoms from the grass. And
below that there is a large cavity, containing nothing but air, for many fathoms
deep. This cavity lies between hard stony walls, about 6 or 9 inches asunder.

Tin is usually incorporated with the stone, or is found in it. They break
every individual stone, and if there be any blackness in the stones, of this black
stuff the tin is produced. — Sometimes it is as it were mixed with a small gravelly
earth; sometimes white, but for the most part red. From this earth it is easily
separated by bare washing^; but from the stone not without much stamping. —
This gravelly tin they distinguish from that which is gathered from the stones,
calling it pryan tin, and is but about half the richness of the other. — They have
another sort of ore, called mundic ore. Being mixed together, the mundic
may be easily known by its glittering, yet deep brownness. — The mundic is said
to nourish the tin; and yet they say where much mundic is found, there is little
or no tin; and where there is little or none of that, much and good tin is found.
Certain it is, if there be any mundic left in melting the tin, it does it much pre-
judice, making it less ductile. For tin without it will easily bend any way; but
mixed with it, becomes very brittle, and will crack and break.

This mundic seems to be a kind of sulphur. Fire only separates it from the tin,
and evaporates it into smoke. Little sprigs or boughs being set in the chimnev,
the smoke gathers upon them into a substance, which they call poison, and
think it is a kind of arsenic; which being put into water, easily dissolves, and
produces very good vitriol. — ^The water in which it is dissolved soon changes
small iron rods put into it. — When they burn it to separate it from the tin, it
sends forth a very loathsome and dangerous stench.

Besides the forementioned stones, &c. found in tin mines, and incorporated
with the tin ; there occurs a spar, mixed also with this metal, as it is commonly
with lead and copper. — This appears frequently of a shiny whitish substance;
and casts a white froth on the water in washing it. When first taken out of
the earth it is soft and fattish, but soon after grows somewhat hard. The
miners call it white spar.

The Cornish diamonds, so called, lie intermixed with the ore, and sometimes
on heaps : some of them large enough to have a coat of arms engraven on them ;
and are hard enough to cut glass. Some of them are of a transparent red, and
have the lustre of a deep ruby. These diamonds seem to me to be but a finer,
purer, and harder sort of spar ; for they are both found together, as on St.
Vincent's rocks near Bristol.

The working of the ore is performed in this manner : The stones, beaten as
before said, are brought to the stamping-mill. They are so disposed, as that

VOL. II. 3 I

426 PHILOSOPHICAL TRAJfSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

by degrees they are washed into a latten-box with holes. Into which the stampers
fall : by which means they are beaten pretty small, and by the water continually
passing through the box, the ore through its weight, falls close by the mill,
and the parts not metalline, which they call causalty, are washed away by the
water. And thus the first separation is made. — They then take that which falls
close by the mill, and so dispose it in the said milf, that the water may once
more drive it, to make a better separation of the causalty. — Next they dry it in
a furnace on iron-plates, and then grind it very fine in a crazing-mill, with
stones common in the hills of that country. — After this they re-wash it as be-
fore, and then dry it a little, and so carry it to the furnace, called a blowing-
house, and there melt and cast it.

There swims on the metal, when it runs out of the furnace, a scum, which
they call dross ; much like to slag or dross of iron ; which being melted down
with fresh ore, runs into metal. The causalty they throw in heaps upon banks,
which in 6 or 7 years they fetch over again, and make worth their labour.
But they observe, that in less time it will not afford metal worth the pains ; and
at the present none at all.*

Experiments of refining Gold with uintimony.-^ By Dr. Jonathan Goddard. "^

N° 138, p. 953.

I. Having taken 178 grains of crown gold, of 22 carats fine, it was melted
down with about 6 times as much antimony. And because the gold was made
into plates, for the more certain melting and mixture, the first regulus of gold
being separated from the antimony, both were powdered apart, and the regulus
in the melting-pot laid on the same antimony, and so both melted down again,

* In some of the future volumes a further account of tin-ores, with tlieir analysis, will be given.

-}• The mode here described of refining gold by antimony is extremely tedious, and is attended
with considerable expence. Gold may be freed from an alloy of the baser metals by cupellation
with lead ; but not from an alloy of silver. For the separation of this last it is usual to resort to the
processes of quartation and parting by aquafortis.

\ Jonathan Goddard, a physician of much note in the I7th century, was an early and active
member of the Royal Society. He was educated at Oxford, and took his medical degree in that
university. After passing some time in foreign travel, he established himself in London, and read
anatomical lectures before the College of Physicians. He became a favourite with Cromwell, who
appointed him chief physician of the army, made him warden of Merton College, and conferred
other honours upon him. These appointments, however, were taken from him on the restoration of
Charles II. 5 and he was only suffered to retain his situation of lecturer on physic, at Gresham
College. He died in l674. He always prepared his medicines himself, the composition of which
he kept a secret. An account of them, however, was published in l691> under the title of Arcana
Goddardiana, annexed to Bate's Pharmacopoeia. It is said he was the first who made a Telescope in
this country. See the 3d Volume of Birch's History of the Royal Society.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TilANSACTIONS. 427

In both which meltings such a heat was given, as made all of a clear light
red heat. Then the pot was taken off, and all permitted to separate, settle,
and cool in it. On breaking the pot the regulus of gold, being very distinct
in the bottom, and easily separated from the antimony, weighed J 63 grains.

This way of cooling all in the pots was observed in all the following ex-
periments, for the more certain separation and settling of the regulus, with-
out effusion into the antimony-horn, or hollow iron-cone. Which effusion,
by confounding and cooling the mixture, may be some hindrance to a more
perfect separation. Note also, that borax was used in every pot, for prevent-
ing the sticking of the regulus to the bottom, and the antimony to the sides
of it.

A piece was broken off the regulus, which weighed 38^^ grains, and was
kept to be refined on the cupel apart. The weight of the remainder was there-
fore 1 24-^ grains. This remainder being powdered, and put on an equal quan-
tity of fresh antimony, as at first, and melted down, the regulus weighed 74
grains.

The other piece, of 3 84^ grains, being refined on a cupel from the antl-
monial substance mixed with it, by exhalation, promoted sometime with a
blast upon it, especially toward the latter end, as in all the following experi-
ments of refining upon the cupel, weighed 304- grains : and upon melting with
borax in a crucible, lost not above half a grain. So that the weight of the
whole to the gold it held, was as 38-i- to 301, or the gold almost -§- of the whole.

The latter regulus, weighing 74 grains, being refined in the same manner,
weighed 63 grains : the gold holding in proportion to the whole, as 63 to 74,
that is near upon -f of the whole. So that the same regulus of gold and anti-
mony, in passing through new antimony, though it lose much in weight, yet
there is not a proportionable loss of gold : but it is richer in gold, as is proved
by this and many other trials.

Both the parcels of antimony being saved, for separating the gold remaining
behind in them; they were severally mixed with equal weight both of tartar
and nitre, and then fired, and so reduced to a regulus. Then the regulus of
each, exhaled and blown off upon cupels. Of the first parcel of antimony,
with which the gold was first melted, the regulus being exhaled, there re-
mained in gold 30 grains. Which, upon melting in a crucible, lost scarcely
half a grain. Of the second parcel of antimony, with which the first regulus
of gold and antimony, weighing 1241 grains, was melted, there remained in
gold 27 grains.

All the other parcels were fine gold to sense, on the touch. Only that out
of the first antimony, was apparently not fine, and pale, from the silver in the

3 I 2

428 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

original alloy mixed with it, and not from any remainder of antimony, as ap-
peared by the inconsiderable waste upon melting it in a great heat with a blast
upon it: and also by the toughness and malleability : and by comparing it on
the touchstone, with sovereign gold allayed with silver, to which it agreed, but
w^as somewhat paler; holding, as judged, about a fourth part of silver, as the
sovereign gold holds a sixth. Neither was it quite free from copper ; because,
upon annealing, it always turned black on the surface.

But for more exact discovery, itwas first refined with lead on a cupel, for sepa-
ration of any copper that might be in it. On which operation it came forth
334 grains; which was 24- grains less than it was before. Afterwards this last
was melted with between 2 and 3 parts of silver, and so wrought in aquafortis
for separation of the silver : and there remained in gold 28^ grains, being 5
grains short of the former. And yet it appeared, on the touch, not fine, but
paler than fine gold, and deeper than crown gold allayed with silver. So that
what remained in it was necessarily of silver ; and it might be estimated about
23 carats fine ; or to hold in fine gold about 27 grains.

The loss of gold, on this refining with antimony, may easily be computed.
First, tV is to be deducted from the first quantity of crown gold, being
178 grains, for alloy; which is 14-^ grains. So the remainder is l63-|- grains.
Then the several parcels of fine gold, recovered and separated from the regulus
of antimony and gold, and also from the parcels of the crude antimony reduced
to regulus, are to be added together : that is to say, 30 grains, 63 grains, 27
grains, and 27 grains (the 27 grains last mentioned;) all which amount to 147
grains. Which being deducted from the first quantity of 163 grains, the dif-
ference is if) grains, which is ^ and -j-V of -^.

The piece of regulus weighing 124 grains, melted with the second parcel of
antimony (in proportion to the former piece broke off, weighing 38 grains, and
upon refining yielded 30 grains of pure gold) must contain 98 grains of the
like gold ; and so much this second parcel of antimony must be charged with.
Toward which, the regulus weighing 74 grains, being refined, produced 03
grains. And that gold separated from the same antimony, being 27 grains,
added to the former, make 90 grains : short of the first quantity charged on
this parcel of antimony, by 8 grains.

Some loss of gold may happen on powdering the regulus in an iron mortar,
as also by the papers necessarily used. But it is most probable, that the greatest
loss was by small sparks, which continually fiy up while the antimony is in a
boiling heat with the gold; which is always given it for the better melting and
mixture. These sparks appear heavy, by their rising not very high, and most
of them falling down again on the metal and within the pot : but many fly

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4^9

over into the fire. It is not improbable also, that some loss of gold may take
place on the firing of the antimony, for reducing it to a regulus with tartar and
nitre, which make a vehement conflagration with much sparkling.

It has been suspected, that some gold may be dissipated by the blast on the
cupels, in refining it from the antimony remaining in it. But this is not so
probable ; because gold has been melted several times with a greater proportion
of regulus of antimony simple, than is contained in the golden regulus, and
refined from it with the greatest heat and blast that could be given, without any
loss. And it is the constant practice of some refiners, to give their fine gold
a higher colour for gilding, to put a third or fourth part of crude antimony, or
of regulus of antimony, and with a great heat and strong blast work it off;
in which operation, in some ounces of gold, they lose not one grain.

II. Again, there was taken 141-i- grains of crown gold, which was melted
with 1 ounce and ^ of antimony. The regulus w^eighed 123 grains. From
this, a piece weighing 30 grains was broken off, and resented for refining by
itself ; the remainder, being 93 grains, was melted down again with the same
antimony, being pow^dered and put on the top : and then the regulus came
forth, weighing Ql grains : so that here was no considerable loss. And there is
ground to suspect, that it might be upon some accidental difference in the
managing, that the regulus did not so perfectly separate and settle : for in all
other experiments of melting the same regulus again with the same antimony,
the regulus gained weight ; as in the next following : —

From this second regulus, a piece broken off, and reserved for refining
apart, weighing 36 grains ; the remainder, being 53 grains, was melted down
as the former, and in the same antimony. Whereupon the regulus came forth
in weight 72 grains ; 17 grains being here gained to 55 grains, making the
whole 72 grains, i. e. between 4- and -i-.

The first piece of 1 pennyweight and 6 grains, being refined on the cupel,
produced of fine gold 1 pennyweight just : which holds in proportion as
24 to 30. So that it contains a of gold, and but ^ of antimonial substance
in it.

The second piece, weighing 36 grains, being refined on the cupel, produced
of fine gold 28 grains, in proportion of 28 to 36, which is rather less than
jl, as in the former; but the difference is inconsiderable for quantity.

The regulus, upon the third melting, weighing 72 grains, refined on the
cupel, produced of fine gold 55 grains. This holds in the proportion of ^ :
but somewhat short of the former.

On these comparisons, in this experiment of repeating the melting of the
regulus with the same antimony, the regulus gains weight each time, but is in

430 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

proportion less rich in gold : both which are contrary, in repeating the melting
of the regulus with fresh antimony, as in the former experiments.

The remaining antimony being reduced to a regulus by firing with nitre
and tartar, of each equal weight to itself, and that regulus exhaled on the cupel,
there remained 1 Q grains of gold. This was less fine than that obtained from
the first antimony, in the former experiment of passing gold through several
parcels of antimony ; though losing little sensibly in weight, upon melting
with a strong heat and blast upon it. So that the impurity was not from any
remaining antimonial substance in it ; but from the silver and copper mixed
with it in the first alloy.

III. A parcel of crown gold, weighing 824- grains, was melted down with
an ounce of antimony ; and the antimony exhaled in the crucible to a regulus.
Then the antimonial part of that regulus was exhaled on a cupel. Whereupon
there remained 84 grains: which was more than the first gold by li grain.
This must happen for want of a heat strong enough at last to force off all the
antimonial substance. Whence afterward, upon melting in a crucible, it came
short 4 grains ; 80 grains, which was but 24- grains shert of the first quantity,
and is the least part of the proportion of copper that must be in it, according
to the usual alloy of crown gold: which is generally two parts to one of
silver, or at least the half. So that antimony, in a far greater proportion,
does not so much as lead in exhaling or separating copper from gold, if the
work be done merely by exhalation ; but only retains it with itself, whilst the
gold separates and settles in a regulus at the bottom. Neither is it so destroyed,
but that it may, in part at least, be united to the gold again. That there re-
mained copper in this gold, appeared farther by the black complexion of it
on annealing. As also by the loss on working it with lead on a cupel : where-
upon it came forth 76 grains, i. e. 4 grains short.

Account of a monstrous Birth, communicated by Dr, S. Morris. N° 138, p. 96 1.

This monstrous female birth had two heads, both the faces very well shaped.
The left face looked swarthy and never breathed; that head was also the
larger. The right head was perceived to breathe ; but not heard to cry. Be-
tween the heads was a protuberance, like another shoulder. The breast and
clavicles very large ; about 7 inches broad. It had only 2 hands and 2 feet.

The brain, in each head, was very large. The spina dorsi, from the neck
to the loins, was double. There were also two hearts, one on each side the
thorax. The left heart the larger. And two pair of lungs ; one infolding -each
heart. Those in the left side were blackish ; the other looked well. The
mediastinum parted the two hearts from each other. The aorta and vena cava,

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 431

below the diaphragm were single ; the diaphragm having only three perforations,
as is usual. But a little above it they were each divided into two branches,
distributed to the two hearts, in the figure of a Greek T. The oesophagus in
like manner, a little above^ the diaphragm, viz. about the fifth vertebra, was
divided into two branches, one ascending up into each throat. There were also
two stomachs or ventriculi. One shaped as in a natural birth; the other a kind
of great bag, larger than the natural ventricle. In which respect it answered
to the paunch in a cow or sheep ; but in regard of its place, rather to the reti-
culus, or else to the abomasum ; being at the one orifice continuous with the
true pylorus, and at the other with the duodenum. Within it was contained a
substance like meconium, as is usual in children newly born. The liver was
single, but very large, and the cystis fellea proportionable. The spleen also,
one, but large. So were the intestines, and all the parts of the lower ventricle,
especially the left kidney. The uterus of the usual size; but the clitoris large.
The secundine extraordinarily great, weighing about 8 pounds*

e

jin jiccmnt of three Books. N°138, p. 963.

I. The Royal Pharmacopoeia, Galeno Chemical^ according to the Practice of
the most eminent and learned Physicians of France, and published with their
several approbations. By Moses Charras, the King's chief Operator in his royal
garden of plants. In English.

A translation of Charras's Pharmacopoeia was noticed in the first volume of
this Abridgement.

II. Decameron Physiologicum ; or. Ten Dialogues of Natural Philosophy.
To which is added the Proportion of a straight Line, equal to half the Arch of
a Quadrant. By Thomas Hobbs, of Malmsbury.

The first of these dialogues is on the origin of natural philosophy. 2. The
principles and method. 3. Of a vacuum, which he denies. 4. On the system
of the world. 5. On the motions of water and air, on clouds, springs, &c.
6. Of heat and cold. 7. On hardness, softness, elasticity, &c. 8. Gravitation,
g. Magnetism. 10. Transparency and refraction. Lastly, a supposed demon-
stration of a right line, equal to the quradrantal arc of a circle.

III. Mechanic Exercises; or. The Doctrine of Handy Works. Began Jan. ],
prosecuted in two other Essays, Feb. 1, and March 1, 1077; and intended to
be continued monthly. By Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King.

A curious and ingenious performance, in which most handycraft works have
been very usefully explained, and illustrated with appropriate figures of the
various tools and instruments.

432 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS^S.

An Occultation of Saturn hy the Moon, Feb. 27, 1678, N. S. Observed at Paris

by M. Bulliald. N° ISQ, p. 969.

Bulliald observed the beginning of this occultation at Paris, at a time when
tlie observed altitude of the star in the head of Andromeda, above the western
horizon, was 18" ll'; whence it follows that the astronomical time from noon
was given equal to 7^ 20"™; but the mean time was 7^ 29"^ 55®. And he saw
the end when the more southern star of Andromeda's girdle, of the second
magnitude, was 21° 17' high to the west. Whence the astronomical time from
noon is found to be S*' 30"^ 22^

M. Bulliald gave calculations of this occultation from several astronomical
tables then in practice, not of any use now to be reprinted. These calculations
commonly show a considerable difference from the real observed times. Parti-
cularly, the philolaic tables make Saturn 1 9' farther advanced in longitude than
he really is by observation ; so that Saturn was then in n 3° 28', with 1° 38*
south latitude. — Further, in this observation by having recourse to the descrip^
tion of the lunar disk, as given by M. Hevelius, we found Saturn to emerge in
that part of the limb, which is situated in a right line drawn from the middle
of Mount Berosus through the Riphaean mountains, a little above Mount
Alanus, and below the southern limits of the hyperborean marshes.

Of Red Snow seen at Genoa. By Sig. Sarotti, the Venetian Resident here, and
by him communicated to the Honourable Mr. Boyle. N° 139, P- 97^'

On St. Joseph's day, on the mountains called Le Langhe, there fell on the
white snow, that lay there before, a great quantity of red, or if you please of
bloody snow. From which, being squeezed, there came a water of the same
colour.

Anatomical Observations on the Structure of the Nose, made by Mons. du Verney.*

N° 139, p. 976.

Mons. du Verney observes, that the cavities of the nose are filled with many
cartilaginous lamina^ distinct from each other; every lamina being divided into

* Guichard Joseph du Verney was bom at Feurs in Forez, ifi-iS. He prosecuted his medical
studies at Avignon, and afterwards removed to Paris j where he was chosen member of the Academy
of Sciences, and was appointed to demonstrate the structure of the different parts of tlie human body
before the Dauphin. He was also elected to the anatomical chair in the king's garden. He died at
Paris in 1730, aged 82. His principal work is on the organ of hearing, published in French, and
afterwards translated into Latin, English, and German. Besides this treatise, Du Verney wrote se-

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 439

many others, all folded almost into a spiral line; and that the os cribrosum is
made up of the extremities of these laminae, which terminate in the root of the
nose, the holes with which it is pierced, being the intervals between the laminae.
That they are designed to support the inner tunic of the nose, which being a
principal organ of smelling, has received from nature a very great expansion;
for the commodious placing of which nature has folded it round about together
with these laminae, that by this economical mechanism she may employ all its
length in a very Httle room. This tunic is filled with innumerable branches of
arteries, veins, and ner\^es; by which it has a most exquisite sense. Yet be-
cause the particles of odorous bodies are so subtile, that they can but very
gently glance on the organ, nature has therefore provided by this great expan-
sion, that the greater number of these particles may strike it at the same time,
and so render their impression the stronger. And that these odorous particles
which rush with the air into the nose in smelling, might not all forthwith pass
ofF from thence into the breast ; nature, by this labyrinth, made by the wind-
ings of the lamellae, has given them an arrest and longer stay. And for the
same reason, she has furnished the said tunic of the nose with a great many
small glands, which open into it, and so moisten it with a thick and slimy exu-
dation, the better to entangle the dry odorous particles. This tunic examined
and compared in several animals, shows also much of the reason of the delicacy
of smelling in some, above what it is in others. For by how much a finer
nose it is that animals have, by so much likewise is there a greater number of
these lamellae, wherewith the said tunic is rolled up in so many more folds. So
the nose of a hound is better furnished with them than that of any other ani-
mal. The hare, fox, cat, wild boar, have a considerable number of them.
Those animals that chew the cud have fewer. And man is less provided for
than any of the rest. And not only the number, but also the length of the
lamellae is of great use for the strength of smelling. For which purpose most
quadrupeds which either hunt, as the carnivorous, or at least want reason other-
wise to distinguish their food than by the smell, as the graminivorous, have
their nose not placed in the middle of the face, as in man, but prolonged to the
very end.

veral memoirs, chiefly on anatomical subjects, of which mention is made in the History of the
Academy of Sciences, and in the Journal des S^avansj from which it will be seen that he bestowed
no inconsiderable pains on comparative anatomy. He left by his will his large and valuable collection
of anatomical preparations to the Academy of Sciences. His nephew, James Francis du Vemey,
was likewise a celebrated demonstrator of anatomy. He undertook a splendid work on the muscles,
the plates of which exhibit those parts as large as in the real subject.

VOL. II. 3 K

434 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ]^ANNO 1078.

Ohservatmis in Congo and Brazil. By Michael Angela de Guattini and Diony-
slus of Placenza, Missionaries thither. N° ISQ, p. 977*

In Brazil there are certain little animals called poux de pharaon,* Pharoah's
lice, which enter into the feet between the skin and the flesh. They grow in
one day as large as beans, and if not presently drawn out they cause an intoler-
able ulcer, and the whole foot corrupts.

Amongst other fair fruit trees in Brazil there is one, whose fruit is called
nicefFo, which has only two leaves ; each of which is large enough to cover a
man.

In the kingdom of Congo there are serpents'}- 25 feet long, which will swallow
at once a whole sheep. The manner of taking them is thus : when they lie to
digest what they have eaten, they stretch themselves out in the sun, which the
blacks seeing kill them. And having cut off their head and tail, and embowelled
them, they eat them ; and usually find them as fat as hogs. There are here a great
number of ants, and so large, that the author reports that being one day sick in
iiis bed he was forced to order himself to be carried out of his room for fear of
being devoured by them ; as it often happens to those of Angola, where may
be seen in the morning the skeletons of cows devoured by these animals in one
night.

On the Sorhus Pyriformis. By Mr. Edmund Pitt. N° ISQ, p. 978.

Last year I found a rarity growing wild in a forest of Worcester. It is de-
scribed by L'Obelius under the name of sorbus pyriformis, J also by Mathiolus
upon Dioscorides, and by Bauhinus, under the name of sorbus procera. And
they agree, that in France, Germany, and Italy, they are commonly found.
But neither these, nor any of our own countrymen, as Gerard, Parkinson,
Johnson, How, nor those learned authors Merret or Kay, have taken notice of
its being a native of England. Nor have any of our English writers so much
as mentioned it. Only Mr. Lyte, in his Translation of Dodonseus, describes
it under the name of the sorb-apple. But says no more of the place, but that
it grows in Holland.

It resembles the ornus or quicken tree ; only the ornus bears the flowers and
fruit at the end, this, on the sides of the branch. Next the sun, the fruit has
a dark red blush, and is about the size of a small jeneting pear. In September,

* Chigger or chego. Pulex penetrans. Linn,

t Boa constrictor. Linn.

} Sorbus domestica. Linn. Pyrus domestica. Smith Engl. Bot. 350.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 435

SO rough as to be ready to strangle one. But being then gathered and kept
till October, they eat as well as any medlar.

Of a Child which remained Tiuenty-six Years in the Mother's Belly y out of the
Uterus. By Mans. Bayle,"^ M.D. N° 139, P- 979-

Margaret Mathew, wife of John Puget, shearman, being with child l652,
perceived about the end of the ninth month of her bearing such pains as women
usually have when about to fall in labour. Her waters also broke, but no child
followed. For the space of 20 years she perceived this child to stir, with
liiany troublesome symptoms. Which made her from time to time to desire the
surgeon to open her belly, and take out this grievous burthen. But for the last
six years she perceived not the child to move. Being lately fallen sick she re-
quested the surgeon to open her when she should be dead. She died June 18,
this year 1678. She was opened the next day, and a child was found in her
belly, out of the womb, no way attached to it. The head was downward; and
the buttocks hanging toward the left side. All the back part of this child was
covered with the omentum, which was about two fingers thick, and stuck hard
to divers parts of the body of it, not to be separated without a knife ; which
being done, very little blood issued. This infant weighed 8 pounds avoirdupois.
The skull was broken into several pieces. The brain of the colour and con-
sistence of ointment of roses. The flesh red where the omentum adhered,
other parts whitish, yellowish, and somewhat livid, except the tongue, which
had the natural softness and colour. All the inward parts were discoloured
with a blackishness, except the heart, which was red, and without any issuing
blood. The forehead, ears, eyes, and nose, were covered with a callous sub-
stance, as thick as the breadth of a finger. The gums being cut, the teeth ap-
peared in the adultness of those in grown persons. The body had no bad smell,
though kept 3 days out of the mother's belly. The length of the body from
the buttocks to the top of the head about 1 1 inches. The mother died about
the 64th year of her age.

An Account of some Books, N° 1 39, p. 98O.

I. Johannis Wallisii, S.T.D. in Celeberr. Academia Oxoniensi Geometriae
Professoris Saviliani, Exercitationes Tres. 1. De Cometarum Distantiis investi-

* This physician, Francis Bayle, held a medical professorship in the university of Toulouse, and
was much esteemed for his learning and probity. He died in 1709 in the 87th year of his age. He
was a man of a philosophical turn of mind, and was author of several other tracts besides the above-
mentioned} which he republished collectively in 1700, in 4 vols. 4to.

3k 2

436 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO I678.

gandis. 2. De Rationum et Fractionum Reductione. 3. De Periodo Juliana.
Lond. 1678.

The first of these three problems, viz. on investigating the distances of
comets, it seems, was undertaken at the request of Sir Chr. Wren, and which
the author states in this problem, viz. " Four right lines being given in posi-
tion in the same plane, to find a fifth, which shall be cut by the four given, so
that the interposed segments shall have a given ratio." The solution of which
he gives. — ^The second problem shows ingenious methods of reducing ratios and
fractions of large terms to other equivalent ones, or nearly so, in much smaller
terms, particularly exemplified in the ratio between the diameter and circum-
ference of a circle. The third tract teaches how to find what year of the Julian
period answers to any given years of these three, viz. the solar and lunar cycles,
and the Roman indiction.

II. Martini Lister e Societate Regia, Lond. Historiae Animalium Angliae tres
Tractatus. Unus, de Araneis. Alter, de Cochleis turn Terrestribus, turn
Fluviatilibus. Tertius, de Cochleis Marinis. Quibus adjectus est quartus, de
Lapidibus ejusdem Insulse ad Cochlearum quandam imaginem figuratis. Lond.
1678.

The first tract contains two books. The former treats of spiders in general.
As a description of their several parts, both outward and inward ; of their ge-
neration; the nature and emission of their thread; casting their cuticle; of
their food; their venom; several either false or dubious traditions concerning
them; medicines made of them. — The second book contains a distribution of
spiders into their several species, arranged in curious and compendious tables of
divisions and subdivisions. He likewise exhibits the figures ; sets down the de-
scriptions, place, time of laying, manner of coition. Describes their eggs,
nests, nets, threads. Speaks of their food and manner of living; their very
high ascent into the air, &c.

The second tract has three parts. The first of snails in general. As, of
their shells, and other parts both outward and inward; their saliva, eggs, food;
use in medicine ; diet, &c. — The second of land snails. — The third of river
snails. The several sorts being figured, described, and comprised by the author
in tables of subdivisions.

The third tract is of sea snails, which by the author are figured and distri-
buted into tables, like the former.

The last book, de Cochlitis Angliae, presents the figures and descriptions of
many of this kind, classed in tables like the others.

The author is rather of opinion that these figured bodies are not petrified
shells, but bred in the earth, like other stones.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 437

III. Lectures and Collections made by Robert Hooke, Secretary of the Royal
Society.* 1678.

This work is divided by the learned author into two parts. The first is called
Cometa: containing, besides observations of the comets of 1664, 1665, and
1677, a discourse also on comets in general. Also several other astronomical
tracts, relating to the spots on the sun, and the transits of the planet Mer-
pury, &c. — ^The second part is called Microscopium ; containing a description
of microscopes, and their employment in viewing several minute objects.

Anatomical Observations on the Body of a Woman about 50 Years old, who died
Hydropical in her left Testicle, \ovarium~\, Dec. 30, l677. By Dr. Henry
Sampson. N° 140, p. 3 000.

The woman had been married, but had never borne a child. Had been a widow
for about 10 years before her death. In which time she was much oppressed
with grief; and her belly by degrees began to swell ; yet not much, till about 4
years before she died. In the year 1678, at which time she weighed 216
pounds, I advised her to the use of cathartic hydragogues, and diuretics, after
the use of which for some time, she weighed but 200 pounds. But still the
morbific matter was reaccumulated to the diseased part. So that resolving to
forbear further medicines, within half a year after she weighed 250 pounds; her
belly being at last so distended as to hang down, as she sat, below her knees.

On opening her, there issued about 20 pounds of a brownish water or serum
from one of the vesicles of the left ovarium. Having separated the muscles of
the abdomen, I found no serum or hydropic water, but a heap of bladders of
several sizes presented themselves. From the largest of which there issued
above 20 pounds more of a brown and thickish serum, tinctured with a sedi-
ment of the colour of umber. Some of the smaller were about the size of a
child's head, and yielded a slimy serum, in consistence and colour like the mu-
cilage of quince seeds. Others were much less, from the size of a man's fist,
to that of a walnut: most of which contained a serum like the white of an Q^gi
in some it was less viscous, like starch newly boiled.

At length I perceived that all these bladders were parts some way relating
to the womb. Wherefore having separated the ossa pubis, I took out the
womb with the parts appendant altogether. And then, amongst other parti-

* Mr. Hooke succeeded Mr. Oldenburg as secretary to the Royal Society in l677. But it was Dr .
Grew, elected the other secretary at the same time, who then comuienced the editorship of the Phi-
losophical Transactions in the same year, with No. 137 of that work; and published 6 Nos. ending
with No. 142. After this, Mr. Hooke published 7 Nos. of what he called Philosophical Collections;
and after that Dr. Plot recommenced the Philosophical Transactions in January 1682-3, with No. 143,
and continued them till No. 166.

438 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

culars, observed, that the right testicle or ovary was but small, white, and its
vesicles in a manner dried up. But the left swelled to a vast bulk : the afore-
said bladders, in one of which were contained so many pounds of liquor, being
nothing else originally but the ova belonging to this left ovary. Imagine you saw
about 40 bladders, some of a small pig, others of a hog, or a calf, and some of
an ox, all distended with liquor, and tied like a reeve of onions together, and
you have the appearance of this ovary. — ^The testicle or ovary itself, all the
serum being exhausted, weighed together with the womb, which was but light,
25 pounds. Out of all the said vesicles or bladders together, were exhausted
above 112 pounds of serum.

Microscopical Observations on the Structure of Teeth and other Bones, also of Hair.
By Mr. Antony Leuwenhoeck. N° 140, p. 1002.

Having some time since applied a glass, esteemed a good one, to observe the
structure of the teeth and other bones ; they then seemed to consist of globules.
But since then having drawn out one of my teeth, and for further observation
applied better glasses than the former; it has plainly appeared that the whole
tooth was made up of very small, straight and transparent pipes. Six or 700
of these pipes put together exceed not the thickness of one hair of a man's
beard. In the teeth of a cow, the same pipes appear somewhat larger, and in
those of a haddock somewhat less.

I have also observed part of the shin-bone of a calf, 6 or 8 weeks old ; in
which the pipes are less straight than in a tooth ; and sometimes there seemed
to be several lesser pipes joined together, so as to constitute a larger one.

Of the Grain of Ivory.

The author of these Observations has often taken notice of the grain of ivory ;
and is that which upon a due position to the falling light is visible to a naked
eye. The several pieces whereof it is composed, appearing like the fibres or
threads of a muscle, running in parcels, decussatim, and under and over each
other reciprocally; and so making up one piece of platted work.

I have formerly also with others examined the structure of hair ; and we
agreed that it consisted wholly of globules ; as also the hoof of an elk. But
not being satisfied without further inquiry ; I took the hair of my beard after
it had been shaved the first, second, third, and fourth days, and observed,
that the little particles which we saw through the common microscopes, which
yet were very good, and which appeared round, were indeed irregular, and lay
very closely pressed one upon another. Of these particles consist the outer
parts or cuticle of the hair. One of these hairs I met with, which seemed rare.

TOL. XII.] FHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 439

being on the one side convex, on the other somewhat concave, and looking
Hke two hairs continuous or growing together.

I examined the roots of several hairs plucked out of my hand, nostrils, eye-
lid, eye-brow, &c. and clearly saw that the whole root, except the cuticle, con-
sisted of little strings, which I suppose to be veins or vessels, appearing like a
common tree with all its roots.

A New Invention of a Clock ascending on an inclined Plane. By M, de Gennes,

N° 140, p. 1006.

We have formerly seen clocks that never go but when they are applied on an
inclined plane. But we never yet saw any clocks that wind up again of them-
selves on the same plane. There is to be seen in M. Cospi's study, a wooden
wheel, which has the same effect on an inclined plane, invented by M. Bondoni,
a Florentine secretary to the said Marquis. But M. Legati does not unfold
this secret ; and M. de Gennes, having found out the same, has successfully
applied it to a clock, on the following principle. — Fig. 4, pi. 12, represents the
inside of the machine placed on an inclined plane. The whole invention con-
sists of a weight, which causes the machine to act after the following manner : —

The circle FGH being placed on an inclined plane AB, is divided into two
unequal parts by the line GI. To restore to the least segment its equilibrium,
there is fastened to the extremity of the radius DF, a weight F, which is suf-
ficiently heavy to recover what the lesser segment loses by its situation. That a
wheel or clock may thus stand not only in equilibrium, but also ascend upward,
there is placed in the middle of the clock a drum, which encloses the spring of
the pendulum, on which drum is fastened the radius DF. For thus the spring,
being mounted, forces the drum to turn, and so raise the weight, which it can-
not do without its becoming heavier, because that coming to the point E, it is
farther from the centre than when it was at F; and thus the wheel turns on that
side as the spring gives way.

y/ iV<?M; Engine to make Linen- Cloth without the help of an Artificer. By M. de

Gennes, N° 140, p. 1007.

This engine is no other than a mill to which are applied all the parts of a
weaver's ordinary loom. It consists of four principal parts, viz. the serpent A A,
two footsteps or treddles BB, one clapper C, and two arms DD, DD, fig. 5,
pi. 12. — ^The serpent, or iron bar A A, has two elbows EE, to which the
two ends of the ropes are fixed that raise and depress the treddles BB : FF are
two fourths of a circle, that successively rest on two arches or bows of iron GG,
which are above the clapper C, in order to raise it. HH are two teeth of iron^

440 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

added to the serpent, making an angle of 25 degrees with FF and KK, which
serve to depress a bascule or sweep, which is in the arm that carries the shuttle.
The treddles differ in nothing from those which are commonly used, only the
cords that hold them pendent from the ground are fixed in the elbows of the
serpent, which in turning raises and depresses them by the help of two little
pulleys on which the ropes turn. — The clapper is supported between two pillars,
with a rope double twisted, which causes it to make a kind of a spring, and
naturally to yield forwards, to beat the cloth. — LM is one of the arms which
pass freely into the canal or pipe NN, supported by four pillars of wood OOOO.
Its motion proceeds from the following parts : PQ is a bascule which, though
unequally divided by its supporter R, is yet in equilibrio, the end PR being
made to weigh exactly as much as RQ. — At the extremity of this bascule is tied
a cord, which passes through the pulley S, and terminates at the extremity of
the arm, where it is fastened to a little bowl M. At the other extremity of the
same arm, towards L is also fastened underneath a cord, which passes through
the pulley T, and carries the weight V. — At the same end of the arm is added
a little nich Z, about the size of half the shuttle : then over a little bar X Y,
which passes athwart the arm, there are two other little pieces of wood, having
at the end of them two teeth, which enter into the nich Z through two holes,
which are on both the sides.

To the ends of these little pieces of wood there is a small bow of whalebone
or steel, which keeps the two ends asunder, and forces the teeth, which are at
the other end, to enter into the nich before the said pieces themselves. At the
points 1 1 are two ropes, that pass through the pulley 22, fastened to the pillars
0 3 0 4, having each of them a little weight at the end large enough to keep it
from passing through a little bowl which is under each pulley.

This arm so disposed goes and comes in the hole NN in the following man-
ner. One tooth of the serpent already described, strikes on the extremity of
the bascule PQ, and so causes the end Q to rise up, which drawing the cord
fastened to the point Q, makes the arm LM to advance forward. But when
afterwards the tooth of the serpent is come out, then the weight V tied to the
other end of the same arm by a cord, that passes through the pulley T, forces
the said arm by its own weight to return again. — When the arm LM is in its
ordinary place, the two little pieces of wood into which the bar X Y enters, en-
close the shuttle by means of the whalebone spring. But when the said arm ap-
proaches the other opposite arm, then the cords tied to the points II being a
little too short, and the weight which is at the end of them not being able to
pass through, the spring gives way a little, and so the shuttle is no longer en-

Vol. XII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 441

closed by the arm which carries it, but is wholly received and grasped by the
'other ; which likewise in its turn delivers it back again in the same manner.

The motion of the whole machine is made at the rate as you move the handle
•of the serpent ; for then the arms cause the threads to open, and immediately
one of the arms begins to slide in towards the opposite arm, to which it carries
the shuttle, and retires immediately. At the same time one of the quarters of
a circle which held the clapper elevated quits it, and leaves it to flap, and then
the opposite quarter of a circle elevating itself, the other elbow changes the
threads, and the other arm retires, and so on successively.

The advantages of this machine are these; 1. That one mill alone will set 10
or 12 of these looms at work. 2. The cloth may be made of what breadth you
please, or at least much broader than any which has been hitherto made. —
3. There will be fewer knots in the cloth, since the threads will not break so
fast as in other looms, because the shuttle that breaks the greater part can
never touch them. In short the work will be carried on quicker and at less ex-
pence, since instead of several workmen which are required in making of very
large cloths, one boy will serve to tie the threads of several looms as fast as
they break, and to order the quills in the shuttle.

Of a Worm Voided by Urine. Communicated by Mr. Ent ; to whom it was sent
by Mr. Matthew Milford. N° 140, p. lOOQ.

The worm when I voided it was then alive. It was snake-headed, of indiffer-
ent substance in the middle, and small at the tail. In length above half a yard.
I was very ill before it came away ; and ever since the urine seems mixed with
blood.

• This relation is here set down in the patient's own words. It is most probable
he had had a suppression of urine for sometime, at the first making whereof the
worm was voided from one of the kidneys, wherein it was bred, into the blad-
der; and at the second from thence into the pot. — The worm when dead and
dry was of a dull red colour, and in thickness about the 12th of an inch.

To make a probable Conjecture of Tempers and Dispositions by the Modulations of
the Voice in ordinary Discourse. Communicated also by Mr. Ent. N° 140,
p. 1010.

Sitting in some company, and having been but a little before musical, I
chanced to take notice that in ordinary discourse words were spoken in perfect
notes; and that some of the company used eighths, some fifths, some thirds;
and that those were most pleasing, whose words, as to their tone, consisted

VOL. n. 3 L

442 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1678.

most of concords; and where of discords, of such as constituted harmony; and
the same person was the most affable, pleasant, and the best natured in the
company. And this suggests a reason why many discourses which one hears
with much pleasure, when they come to be read scarcely seem the same things.

From this difference of music in speech, we may also conjecture that of tem-
pers. We know the Doric mood sounds gravity and sobriety ; the Lydian free-
dom; the ^olic sweet stillness and composure; the Phrygian jollity and youth-
ful levity; the Ionic sooths the storms and disturbances arising from passion.
And why may we not reasonably suppose that those whose speech naturally
runs into the notes peculiar to any of these moods, are likewise in disposition.

So also from the cliff; as he that speaks in gamut to be manly; C Fa Ut may
show one to be of an ordinary capacity, though good disposition. G Sol Re
Ut to be peevish and effeminate, and of a weak and timorous spirit. Sharps
an effeminate sadness ; fiats, a manly or melancholic sadness. He who has a
voice in some measure agreeing with all cliffs, seems to be of good parts and
fit for variety of employments, yet somewhat of an inconstant nature. Like-
wise from the times; so semibriefs may bespeak a temper dull and phlegmatic;
minims grave and serious; crochets a prompt wit; quavers vehemency of pas-
sion, and used by scolds. Semibrief-rest may denote one either stupid or fuller
of thoughts than he can utter; minim-rest one that deliberates; chrochet-rest,
one in a passion ; so that from the natural use of mood, note and time, we may
collect dispositions.

Account of some Books. N° 140, p. ]01T.

I. Museo Cospiano annesso a quello del famoso Ulisse Aldrovandi* et donato
alia sua Patria dall' Illustrissimo Signore Ferdinando Cospi Patricio di Bologna

' Ulysses Aldrovandus, professor of philosophy and physic at Bologna^ the place of his nativity,
was a most curious inquirer into natural history, and travelled into the most distant countries on pur-
pose to inform himself of their natural productions, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral; but his
principal attention seems to have been devoted to zoology, and in particular to ornithology, in the
pursuit of which branch he expended great sums, having according to Aubert le Mire, engaged at a
yearly salary of two hundred crowns, continued for the space of thirty years together, an eminent
artist to execute his figures of birds. He is also said to have employed, at his own expence, Lorenzo
Bennini, Cornelius Swintus, and the eminent engraver Christopher Coriolanus. These expences
ruined his fortune, and at length reduced him to the utmost necessity, and it is said that he died bhnd
in a hospital at Bologna, at a great age, in the year l605. Bayle observes, that antiquity does not
furnish us with an instance of a design so extensive and laborious as that of Aldrovandus, with regard
to natural history, Pliny indeed has treated of more subjects, but only touches them lightly, whereas
Aldrovandus has collected all he could. His compilation, or at least what was compiled upon his
plan, consists of several volumes in folio, some of which were printed after his death. He himself

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIOJfS. 4^

et Senatore, &c. Descrizzione di Lorenzo Legati Cremonese, in fol. In
Bol. J 678.

Mr. Ferdinand Cospi, marquis of Petreoli, equally illustrious for his merit,
the employments wherewith he is honoured in the court of Tuscany, and for
his extraordinary learning, which has raised him to one of the highest degrees
in the academy of the Gelati in Bononia, having with extraordinary care and
expence made a collection of whatever he saw there that was curious and rare,
and bestowed it upon his country, the Senate of Bononia has added the same
to that of Aldrovandus. An ample and learned description whereof is here made
by M. Lorenzo Legati, philosopher, physician, and Greek professor in the
university of Bononia.

He divides the work, into five books.

The first contains a description of whatever this museum contains of rarity
concerning mummies, beasts, serpents, birds and human monsters. — The second
book contains descriptions and remarks of several rarities concerning aquatiles,
as of the flying fish, &c. also of corals, pearl, &c. — ^The subjects of the third
book are works of art. — The fourth and fifth books are concerning the medals
and gods of the ancients.

IL Systema Bibliothecae Collegii Parisiensis Soc. Jesu. In4to. A Par. 1678.

Of which library the author of the said journal says, that it contains above
32,000 volumes.

in. Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis, in quo Latina
Vocabula novatae significationis explicantur ; complures aevi medii Ritus et
Mores ; Legum, Consuetudinum Municipalium, et Jurisprudentiae recentioris
formulae et obsoletae voces ; utriusque Ordinis Ecclesiastici et Laici Dignitates
et Officia, &c. enucleantur et illustrantur ; innumera denique Scriptorum loca
Graecorum, Gal. Lat. Ital. Hispan. German. Anglo-Sax. expenduntur, emen-
dantur, elucidantur. In fol. 3 vol. Autore Carolo du Fresne Domino du
Cangi * Regi a Cons, et Franciae apud Ambianos Questore. A Par. 1678.

published his Ornithology, in three volumes, in 1599, and his seven books of Insects, which make
another volume of the same size. The volume of Serpents, three of Quadrupeds, one of Fishes, that
of Exsanguious Animals, the History of Monsters, with the Supplement to that of Animals, the
treatise on Metals, and the Dendrology or History of Trees, were published at several times, after
his death, by the care of different persons, viz. The volume of Serpents by Bartholomaeus Am-
brosinus ; that of Bisulcous Quadrupeds by John Cornelius Uterverius, and afterwards by Thomas
Dempster j that of Digitated Quadrupeds by Ambrosinus ; the History of Monsters by tlie same
author ; the Dendrology by Ovidius Montalbanus ; and the History of Metals by Ambrosinus.

* Du Cange, a learned French lawyer, was bom at Amiens in 161O. He became advocate in
the parliament of Paris, and treasurer of France. He was well acquainted with history, both sacred
and profane, and left many works, both printed and manuscript, at his death, which happened in .

3l 2

444 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

This glossary of M. du Cange is now completed, and posseses great merit.
The work contains above two thousand observables; with several learned dis-
sertations on divers curious and profitable subjects.

IV. Explication Nouvelle et Mechanique des Actions Animales, ou il est traite'
des fonctions de I'Ame, &c. Par. M. Duncan, D. en Med. In 12mo. a Par.
1678.

Because the knowledge of the functions of the soul, and animal motions,
depends much on that of the construction of the brain ; this author therefore
teaches the dissection hereof, after such a manner, as seems more natural than
that of Sylvius, Bartholine, or Willis, although they have all done excellently
well.

j4n Eclipse of the Moon of Oct. 29, N. S. 1678, observed at Paris. By M. Cassmi.

N° 141, p. 1015.

h m s

The beginning of the shadow was at 6 43 35

The total immersion 7 40 20

Beginning of the emersion 9 21 30

End of the eclipse , 10 20 5

Mons. Gallet's Observation of the Solar Eclipse on the Wth of June y N. S. I676,

at Avignone. N° 141, p. 1020.
In observing this eclipse, the image of the sun, through the telescope, was
received on a whiter paper, and the appearances carefully noted. The times
were corrected by the altitudes of the sun, taken by the shadow of a gnomon^
erected for the purpose.

The following were the principal phases and times.
Digits eclipsed.
0° 27' at 7^ 50"^ 34^

8 44 44 the horns were vertical.

9 42 3 the horns were horizontal.
10 25 12 western horn vertical to the sun*s centre.

,10 28 50 end of the eclipse.
The proportion of the diameters appeared equal at the eclipse of 6 digits ;
for then the sun's vertical horns were distant on each side from his vertical

1688, at 78 years of age. Besides the above Latin Glossary, which has been often printed, his.
Greek Glossary of the middle age, in 2 vol. fol. is also an esteemed work. He published also a
history of Constantinople, and various other books, showing extensive reading and deep con-
templation.

6

0.

4

35 .

0

20.

0

0.

VOL. XII.] . PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 443

about 30° : whence it appears that the moon's centre was then in the periphery
of the sun, and that the Hne through the centre was equal to the sun's semi-
diameter. But after the middle of the echpse there was found some change in
the diameter of the shadow ; for the shadow appeared a Httle more convex, so
that the diameter was shorter, though almost insensibly.

The making of Microscopes. By Mr. Butter/ield, Instrument maker to the

French King. N° 141, p. 1026.

I doubt not but you may be as busy at London, as we are here, in making
of microscopes of the kind lately brought out of Holland by Mr. Huygens,
of which I have several sorts ready made. I have tried several ways for the
making of glasses of the size of a large pin*s head, and less ; as in the flame
of a tallow-candle, and of one of wax. But the best way of all I have yet
found, to make them clear and without specks, is with the flame of spirit of
wine well rectified, and burned in a lamp. Instead of cotton, I make use of
very small silver wire, doubled up and down like a skein of thread; which
being wet with the spirit of wine, and made to burn in the lamp, gives through
the veril of the lamp a very ardent flame. Then take the beaten glass, being
first washed very clean, on the point of a silver needle filed very small, and
wet with spittle. Hold it thus in the flame till it be quite round, and no
longer for fear of burning it ; and if the side of the glass next the needle be
not melted, you may put it off and take it up with the needle on the round
side, presenting the rough side to the flame till it be every where very round
and smooth ; then wipe and rub one or several of them together with soft
leather, which makes them much the better. Then put them between two
pieces of thin brass, the apertures very round, and that towards the eye almost
as large as the diameter of the glass ; and so place it in a frame with the object
conveniently for observation.

Improvement of Sir Samuel MorelancTs Speaking Ti-umpet, &c. By Mr. John

Conyers. N° 141, p. 1027-

Having some years since tried to make one of Sir S. Moreland's speaking
trumpets of tin, that is, tinned iron plate ; and finding it to serve, as well as
copper or glass ; I next thought of several ways for reducing it to a more con-
tracted form, without abating its power. In consequence Dr. Goddard pre-
sented to the Royal Society, at one of their meetings, held at Arundel House,
the reflecting trumpet here described. It consists of two parts. The utmost
Bb (fig. 6. pi. 12.) is a large concave pyramid, about a yard long, or of any
manageable length, open at the base b, and closed, not with a flat, but a con-

446 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

cave head, at the cone B. Within this is fastened a bended tube A a, as in the
figure. On trial before the Royal Society it was found, that this trumpet
distinctly delivered certain words from the said house across the garden and the
river Thames, and that against the wind, which was then strong : and the words
were written down by a person sent over for that purpose. By which it ap-
peared, that a reflecting trumpet after this, or some other like manner, of
wood, tin, pewter, stone or earth, or which may be best, of bell metal, will
send the voice as far as the long one invented by Sir Sam. Moreland, or farther.
Besides, that it seems to take off from the great noise near at hand, which
happens in the use of the long trumpet; so that it may be used within doors,
with advantage, on several occasions.

Some other trials were made to effect the above mentioned contraction,
which were found not to answer. Yet because they may serve, in part, to
shew the motion of sound, I have added two examples hereof. The first is
Sir Samuel Moreland's trumpet angularly arched in the middle, fig. 7 ; the
second, with three large angular arches reaching almost from one end to
the other, as in fig. 8 : by the former of which the delivery of sound, to any
distant or remote place, is much shortened; but by the latter almost wholly
obstructed.

An Account of two Books. N° 141, p. 1030.

I. A Discourse of the State of Health in the Island of Jamaica, with a Pro-
vision calculated for the same, from the Air, the Place, and the Water ; the
Customs and Manner of Living, &c. By Thomas Trapham, M. D. Coll.
Med. Lond. Soc. Hon.

This treatise on the climate, diseases, and natural productions of Jamaica, is
superseded by the later and more ample accounts of Sloane and Browne.

II. Catalogus Stellarum Australium ; sive Supplementum Catalogi Tychonici^
exhibens Longitudines et Latitudines Stellarum fixarum, quae prope Polum
Antarcticum sitae, in Horizonte Uraniburgico Tychoni inconspicuae fuere, ac-
curato Calculo, ex Distantiis supputatas, et ad Annum 1677, completum cor-
rectas. Cum ipsis Observationibus in Insula S. Helenae (cujus Latitudo 15 gr.
55 m. Austr. et Longit. 7 gr. 00 m. ad Occasum a Londino) summa Cura et
Sextante satis magno de Coelo depromptis. Opus ab Astronomicis hactenus
desideratum. Accedit Appendicula de Rebus quibiisdam Astronomicis, notatu
non indignis. Authore Edmundo Halleio, e Coll. Reg. Oxon.

The author having found that the astronomical tables in use, are defective in
calculating the motions of celestial bodies ; so that Saturn for instance moves
much slower, and Jupiter swifter, than appears by those tables. Hence he had

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 447

thoughts of correcting them ; but presently foresaw that could never be well
done, without a more correct catalogue of the fixed stars, a task which was
already undertaken by other excellent hands. He therefore chose rather to
take upon himself the stating of the places of the fixed stars near the south
pole, and out of our horizon. And being approved and encouraged by such
respectable persons as Lord Brouncker, Sir Joseph Williamson, Sir Jonas Moore,
and others, and even by the King also, he furnished himself with such instru-
ments as were necessary for his purpose : which he particularly mentions and
describes. Of these, he says, he made the utmost and most assiduous use
that could be, in a place of so thick and cloudy a sky as that of St. Helena,
contrary to common report, proved to be; having restored about 350 fixed
stars, which were omitted in Tycho's catalogue.

To his own observations the author has added an ancient catalogue outof Clavius*s
Commentaries in Sphaeram Jo. de Sacrobosco ; and that of Bartschius e Tabulis
Rudolphinis Kepleri : that being compared with these his observations, it might
evidently appear how very much the ancient globes almost every where difl^er
from the heavens. From these observations, as he proceeds, he also proposes
some conjectures of the corruptibility, or at least the mutability of the fixed
stars. Next follows a table of the right ascensions of the southern fixed stars,
and their distances from the pole : for the use of navigators. To which is
subjoined an observation of Mercury by our author, scil.

Mercurii Transitus sub Solis Disco. Oct. 28. Anno 1677. Cum Tentamine

pro Solis Parallaxi.
Of his conjectures here made about the sun's parallaxis, in his preface he
"says, that were the place of Mercury's node once found, from this his obser-
vation of Mercury, the sun's parallaxis might be deduced.

Hereto are added, by our author.
Modi quidam pene Geometrici pro Parallaxi Lunae investiganda.
Of which there are three proposed ; of which it is remarked that the best
way of finding the same, would be, by comparing the meridian altitudes of the
moon, observed both in St. Helena and in Europe at the same time.

The concluding chapter is entitled,
Quaedam Lunaris Theorise Emendationem spectantia.
Wherein it is observed that astronomy is at present most of all defective.
And that the discovery hereof would lead us to the most exact way of finding
the longitude of places.

448 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

Anatomical Observations on an Abscess in the Liver \ also a great Number of
Stones in the Gall-Bag and Bilious Vessels ; an unusual Conformation of the
Emulgents and Pelvis ; a strange Conjunction of both Kidnies ; and great
Dilatation of the Vena Cava. By Edw. Tyson* A. M. and M, S. Oxon.
N° 142, p. 1035.

The anatomy of morbid bodies, as Dr. Harvey has observed, is most instruc-
tive ; thereby we become acquainted not only Wi\h the many causes that oppress
nature, but with the liberty she often takes in forming the parts different from
her usual rule ; our present subject affords both. For on lately opening the
body of a clergyman of this city, we observed the liver to be very large and
fastened to the diaphragm more than usually ; the colon so firmly joined to the
liver near the gall-bladder, that I could not separate it without incision. The
gibbous part of the liver towards the right side, appeared discoloured, where
making an incision there plentifully issued out a perfect pus, very foetid ; and
the same from a wound I made in its cavous part near the fissure. This puru-
lent matter I found not contained in any particular cystis or bag, but in several
sinuses in that part of the liver ; whereas the other parts seemed sound and
well coloured. Nor did I any where meet with any tubercules, glandules, or
scirrhus.

This abscess may well be presumed the cause of that lurking fever that ended
in death. The patient laboured under it about six weeks, but without much
sickness, though troubled with irregular heats, yet sometimes such as were
imperceptible to himself: twice or thrice, but at great distances, he had pa-
roxysms of chill fits like an intermittent fever, but such a fcetor and dryness in
his throat as proved obstinate to all medicines. His approaching death was
attended with other symptoms that usually follow the affection of the brain
and genus nervosum. Formerly he had been often subject to the yellow jaun-
dice ; and it is well worth the enquiry, why at present nothing thereof appeared }
since the gall bladder was not only filled with stones, but likewise the meatus
cysticus and ductus communis even to the duodenum were very much distended
with them ; in the porus bilarius also I met with several small ones. No fluid

* Edward Tyson was a celebrated Physician and Anatomist of the 17th century, and a great con-
tributor to the Philosophical Transactions, especially on subjects relative to natural history and com-
parative anatomy. He read lectures at Gresham College. Besides his numerous communications
to the Royal Society, he published the following works : Phocoena, or an Anatomy of a Porpus,
I68O. Carigueya -seu Marsupiale Americanum, or the Anatomy of an Opossum dissected at
Gresham College, 1698, (of which an account is also inserted in tlie Philosophical Transactions.)
The Anatomy of a Pigmy, compared with a monkey, an ape, and man, &c. 1699.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS* 449

gall was contained in the bladder, but some that was soft of a deep yellow
ochre colour that filled up the interstices of the stones. These stones were of
various sizes, from that of a nutmeg, to a pepper corn : their colour was of a
darkish yellow ochre, although in some there appeared laminae of a browner
colour: to the touch, when a little dry, they seemed soapy; their weight was
light, and their scent very fetid, resembling that of the purulent matter in the
liver. Their consistence was friable ; their figure for the most part triangular,
or inclining to that figure, but all angular ; that side towards the gall bag was
protuberant and convex, the other two sides were flat; so that having the
lesser angle towards the centre of the cavity of the gall bag, like so many
wedges, they more completely filled it: I numbered I think above thirty.

Our inquiry thus far had informed us of the cause of the patient's death, as
well as of his former illness, and frequent disposition to the jaundice. But
prosecuting our search, we were more surprised to observe the unusual struc-
ture and conjunction of both kidneys, the parenchyma of the one being con-
tinued over the spine unto the other, so that they both made but one continued
semilunary body. This although rare, yet hath been sometimes observed by
former authors. The kidneys here were large ; that part that conjoins them,
and lies over the spine, was something less than the true kidneys, and in its
outward tunicle or membrane had three seams, although that parenchyma in-
wardly seemed not to observe such a division, but was the same with the sub-
stance of the kidneys. The emulgent vessels were very numerous : for besides
two larger veins that were subdivided into several lesser ramifications, there were
divers other that were single, even to their insertion into the vena cava. The
middle part likewise, by which both kidneys were conjoined, was plentifully pro-
vided with blood vessels, for it received from the aorta two arteries, which before
their insertion, were each subdivided into three branches; and it sent out two
veins, which being joined afterward into one, entered the vena cava. Besides
at the seam at the lower part of the left kidney, it had a vein and artery, which
afterwards inserted themselves into the iliac branches of the aorta and cava; so
that nature, though erring from her wonted rule in forming this part, yet was
provident in furnishing it with vessels. But to the whole compages of the
kidneys, there belonged only two ureters, but the great dilatation of the pelvis
in each was remarkable ; for that of the left kidney when blown up, was larger
than it is represented in the figure, and had a triple origin. The right had but
a single one, and was less.

Whether this conformation and structure of the kidneys and its vessels were
of much inconvenience to the patient, I shall not define; but am apt to think,
that it might occasion as well the great dilatation of the vena cava, as also of the

VOL. II. 3 M

450 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

pelvis : for the middle part conjoining both the kidneys lying over the vena cava,
by its weight pressing thereon, would hinder the free return of the blood,
which yet would make room for itself, by enlarging its own channel, which
was so capacious as to contain three or four of my fingers. So likewise the
ureters running over that part that conjoins the kidneys, like strings over the
bridge of a viol, in some position of the body they might have their passage so
straightened, that the urine being impeded and regurgitating, might swell and
stretch the membrane of the pelvis to this size.

In fig. 1. pi. 13, A is the right kidney, B the left; C the middle part con-
joining both kidneys; D,E,F, three seams in the coat of the kidneys ; G the
aorta; H two arteries from the aorta, which afterwards are ramified into three,
and so inserted into the said middle part; I the vena cava; KK two veins arising
from the middle part, which, uniting into one, entered the vena cava; LM a
vein and artery arising at the seam f. which at la^ are both inserted into the
iliac branches of nc aorca and vena cava; NN the emulgent artery of both
kidneys, tne ramifications of which are not here represented; OO the emulgent
veins; whereof some are single, others variously ramified; PQ pelvis of both
kidneys, that of the left being extremely large; RR the two ureters.

Four Ureters in a Child ; and on the Glandulce Renales, By Dr. Edw. Tyson.

N° 142, p. 1039.

Having in the former observation given some remarks of the unusual struc-
ture of the kidneys, the emulgent veins and pelvis ; I shall here mention what
occurred to me lately on opening the body of an infant, relating to those parts,
particularly of the ureters; which here I found double to both kidneys, their
origination from the kidneys being at some distance from each other; but after-
wards both of the same side were inclosed in a capsula or membrane, even to
the bladder, where those of the right side were inserted severally, yet near each
other, but on the left they seemed to enter at the same orifice. As far as I have
hitherto observed, the glandulae renales in embrios, and infants, are greater, at
least proportionably, than in adults. They have a large cavity, which by blowing
into them I found emptied themselves into two veins; whereof the right imme-
diately passed into the vena cava, the left into the emulgent: besides these, they
had other lesser ones from the neighbouring vessels.

In fig. 2, pi. 13, A is the right kidney, whose surface seemed to be variously
divided; B the emulgent vein; C the emulgent artery; DD two ureters belong-
ing to this kidney.

Fig. 3, represents the two ureters of the left kidney, which a little below the
kidney are both inclosed in a common capsula or case, and so continued to the
bladder.

▼OL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 451

Fig. 4, represents the glandulae renales. A the glandula renalis of the right
side ; B that of the left side; C the vena cava; D a vein or ductus opening from
the cavity of this gland and entering the vena cava; Ea vein from the left glan-
dula renalis, and is inserted into a branch of the left emulgent.

Ohservationes D. Anthonh Leuwenhoeck, de Natis ^ semine genitali Animalculis.*-
Nee non Auctoris harum Transactionum Responsa. N° 142, p. J 040. f

Obser\'atoris Epistola Honoratiss. D. D. Vice-comiti Brouncker, Latin^ con-

scripta; Dat. Nov. 1677, quam ipsissimis hue transmissis verbis inserendam

Auctor censuit.

Postquam Exc. Dominus Professor Cranen, me visitatione sua saepius hono-
rarat, literis rogavit. Domino Ham cognato suo, quasdam observationum mearum
videndas darem. Hie Dominus Ham me secundo invisens, secum in lagunculil
vitrei semen viri, Gonorrhaed laborantis, spont^ destillatum, attulit, dicens, se
post paucissimas temporis minutias (cum materia ilia jam in tantum esset resoluta,
ut fistulas vitreae immitti posset) animalcula viva in eo observasse, quae caudata,
et ultra 24 horas non viventia judicabat: Idem referebat se animalcula observasse
mortua post sumtam ab aegroto terebinthinam. Materiam praedictam fistulas
vitreae immissam, praesente Domino Ham, observavi, quasdamque in ea creaturas
viventes; at post decursum 2 aut 3 horarum, eandem solus materiam observans,
mortuas vidi.

Eandem materiam (semen virile) non aegroti alicujus, non diuturna conser-
vatione corruptam, vel post aliquot momenta fluidiorem factam, sed sani viri
statim post ejectionem, ne interlabentibus quidem sex arteriae pulsibus, saepius-
cule observavi, tantamque in ea viventium animalculorum multitudinem vidi, ut
interdum plura quam 1000, in magnitudine arenae sese moverent. Non in toto
semine, sed in materia fluida crassiori adhaerente, ingentem illam animalculorum
multitudinem observavi ; in crassiori vero seminis materia, quasi sine motu jace-
bant; quod inde provenire mihi imaginabar, quod materia ilia crassa ex tarn variis
cohaereat partibus ut animalcula in ea se movere nequirent. Minora globulis
sanguini ruborem adferentibus haec animalcula erant: ut judicem millena millia
arenam grandiorem magnitudine non aequatura, Corpora eorum rotunda, ante-

* Tlie discovery of the spermatic animalcules has always been considered as one of the most ex-
traordinary, which the microscope is capable of exhibiting. They are observable in the seminal
fluid of almost all animal sj and though the Leuwenhoeckian theory of generation be now exploded,
yet the existence of such legions of animated beings affords a wide field for philosophical speculation.
The subject however being now sufficiently familiar to the naturalist, it seems unnecessary to preserve
more of Mr. Leuwenhoeck's paper than what is here printedj and which it seems more proper to
give in the original Latin translation from the Dutch, than in English.

3 M 2

452 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

riora obtusa, posteriora ferme in aculeum desinentia habebant ; cauda tenui lon-
gitudine corpus quinquies sexiesve excedente, et pellucida ; crassitiem vero ad
25, partem corporis habente praedita erant, adeo ut ea quoad figuram cum cy-
claminis minoribus longam caudam habentibus optime comparare queam; motu
caudae serpentino, aut ut anguillae in aqua natantes progrediebantur : in materia
vero aliquantulum crassiori, caudam* octies deciesve quidem evibrabant, antequam
latitudinem capilli procedebant. Interdum mihi imaginabar, me internoscere
posse ad hue varias in corpore horum animalculorum partes, quia vero continuo
eas videre nequibam, de iis tacebo. His animalculis minora adhuc animalcula,
quibus non nisi globuli figuram attribuere possum, permista erant.

Siquando canes coeunt, marem a fasmina statim seponas, materia quaedam te-
nuis et aquosa, (lympham spermaticam intelligit) e pene solet paulatim exstillare.
Hanc materiam numerosissimis animalculis repletam aliquoties vidi; eorum
magnitudine quae in semine virili conspiciuntur. Quibus particulae globulares
aliquot quinquagies majores permiscebantur.

Quod ad vasorum in crassiori seminis virilis portione spectabilium observa-
tionem attinet, denuo non semel iteratam, saltem mihimet ipsi comprobasse
videor. Meque omnino persuasum habeo, cuniculi, canis, felis arterias venasve
fuisse a peritissimo anatomico baud unquam magis perspicue observatas, quam
mihi vasa in semine virili, ope perspicilli, in conspectum venere.

Cilm mihi praedicta vasa primtim innotuere, statim etiam pituitam, turn et
salivam perspicillo applicavi. Vertim hie minime existentia animalia frustra quae-
sivi.

A cuniculorum coitu, lymphae spermaticae guttulam unam et alteram e fas-
mella extillantem examini subjeci; ubi animalia praedictorum similia, sed longe
pauciora comparuere. Globuli item quam plurimi, plerique magnitudine ani-
malium, iisdem permisti sunt.

Horum animalium aliquot etiam delineationes transmisi. Figura 5, pi. 13.
exprimit eorum aliquod vivum, (in semine cuniculorum arbitror) eaque formd
nud videbatur, dum aspicientem me versus tendit. ABC capitulum cum
trunco indicant; CD ejusdem caudam; quam, pariter ut suam anguilla, inter
natandum vibrat. Horum millena millia, quantum conjectare est, arenulae
majoris molem vix superant. Fig. 6, 7, 8, sunt ejusdem generis animalia, sed
jam emortua.

Fig. 9 delineatur vivum animalculum, quemadmodum in semine canino sese
aliquoties mihi attentius intuenti exhibuit. EFG caput cum trunco indigitant;
GH, ejusdem caudam. Fig. 10, 11, 12, alia sunt in semine canino, quas motu
et vitd privantur. Qualium etiam vivorum, numerum adeo ingentem vidi, ut
judicarem, portionem lymphae spermaticae arenulas mediocri respondentem,
eorum, ut minimum, decena millia continere.

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 453

Ex aliis Observatoris Literis, clat. 31, 78, etiam teutonic^ conscriptis, aliquot

hue spectantia excerpta,

Seminis canini tantillum microscopio applicatum iterum contemplatus sum,
in eoque antea descripta animalia numerosissima conspexi. Aqua pluvialis pari
quantitate adjecta, iisdem confestim mortem accersit.

Ejusdem seminis canini portiunculA in vitreo tubulo unciae partem duodecima-
lem crasso servat^ sex et triginta horarum spatio contenta animalia vitA destituta
pleraque, reliqua moribunda videbantur.

Quo de vasorum in semine genitali existenti^ magis constaret, delineationem
eorum aliqualem mitto; ut in fig. ABCDE. Quibus literis circumscriptum
spatium arenulam modiocrem vix superat.

De vasis, quoniam auctor dubiis, ex observationibus anatomicis oriundis,
quarum antea ex parte meminit, immoratur; ideo sequentia regerenda judicavit.

Quae videntur vasa sive partes organicae et tubulares, revera seminis cocti

et coagulati filamenta viscosa e vasis testiculorum propriis ejaculata judicamus.
Quorsum autem vasa, si faeminae ova haec suppeditent? Et si ova gallinacea,
quidni et muliebria? At qui muliebria, ubi, inquis, inventa sunt.? In ovariis.
Quae, quam insulse testicula nuncupantur, vel exinde patet, quod vasa duntaxat
sanguinea, nulla sibi propria obtineant. E contra, ovaria quam apposite ? utpote
ovorum, sen vesicularum, lympha viscosa, instar albuminis ovi, distentarum,
duplex congeries. Adeo autem pertinaciter sibi invicem adhaerent, quod imma-
ture conspiciantur. Quin neque vel avium ova, prius quam matura, absque
violenta divulsione ab ovario solvuntur. Pariter ut videmus glandes nucesve
avellanas adhuc minusculas, caliculis suis firma continuitate infixas teneri : quae
tamen aestivo tempore, tactu excutiuntur mollissimo. Deinde, si filicula ista
viscosa, quae pro vasis ostendis, vere talia sint, ut supervacanea essent, ita etiam
generationi prorsus inepta. Adeo enim in transitu e mari in faeminam implica-
rentur (quod etiam ostendunt a te exaratae figurae) ut natura longe facilius opus
moliretur extruendo nova vasa quam haec, si vasa, in ordinem regularem et ge-
nerationi idoneam restituendo. Observationes demum quas Transactionibus
proxime editis et edendis (N° I3g et 140) inserui, altera de foetu non matris in
utero, sed abdomine invento, altera de testiculo s. potius ovario cujusdam mu-
lieris hydropico, rem omni dubio forsan extricabunt.

The jirt of Refining. By Dr. Chr. Merrit. N° 142, p. 1046.

The design of this art is the separation of all other bodies from gold and
silver, which is performed in four ways, viz. by parting, by the test, by the al-
mond furnace or the sweep, and by mercury.

Parting is done with aquafortis, which the refiners make thus: take of salt-

454 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

petre 3 lb. Dantzic vitriol 2 lb. Let them be well bruised and mixed in a mor-
tar, and then put into a long-neck, an earthen vessel so named from its figure.
Then six or eight of these long-necks so filled, are placed in each side of the
furnace, on a range built with iron bars, of the form of a parabola, at above
Q inches distance from each other, and closed at the sides with bricks. The
upper arches are left open to put in and take out the pots. Over the said arches
are laid large bars of iron, and then all the top of the furnace covered with
loam, the body of each long-neck being exposed to the fire, the neck outward,
to which the receivers, whether glass or German pots, are well luted. Note
that if the vitriol be not Dantzic, which is made with copper, but English,
which is made with old iron, the water will be weaker, and make a dirty co-
loured verditer, and wholly spoil it ; besides, the silver will not gather so well
to the copper after solution, and thereby becomes black. The lute is made
of good loam, with some horse-dung and a little colcothar, though the two
former do well. The luting being well worked and applied, they make a gentle
charcoal fire under the pots for 3 hours, and then increase it for 3 hours more;
about the 7th hour they make a vehement hot fire for 4 hours, and cast in at
last well dried billets of the length of the furnace, whose flame surrounds all
the pots, and finishes the work. Next morning the receivers are carefully se-
parated from the long-necks. Usually this work is performed but once in 24
hours, though sometimes twice.

Some refiners distil 100 lb. of the materials put into a cast-iron pot, which is
the best way, especially being performed after this latest invention, viz. Build
a furnace 2 yards high or more, and at the top place in the iron pot; to which
fit a head of earth, like the head of a large distilling alembic for chemical oils,
with a large belly, about 8 inches from the iron pot, into 3 branches; dividing
the middle one going straight forwards, the 2 other lateral ones obliquely ; all
which branches are 4 or 5 inches in diameter, and 5 or 6 long. To these
branches are fitted glass bodies, narrow and hollow at both ends, large and glo-
bular in the midst; which must be well luted on with colcothar, rags, flour,
and whites of eggs. To this first glass body is luted on another glass of the
same figure and size, and 8 ranged in order till they come to the receiver, which
is an ordinary gallon glass. All these rows of glasses lie on boards shelving
from the head to the receiver. The two upper receivers or glass bodies require
exceeding good luting, for the rest, ordinary lute will serve. The convenience
of this way is, that a little fire, and that of Newcastle coal, will do the work,
so that you save a long-neck for each 5 pounds of materials, and you need never
break or unlute any of the receivers but the lowermost.

The aquafortis being distilled off', it is put into a large earthen pot, and there

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 455

is added of fine silver 1 or 2 penny-weights, called fixes, to every pound of aqua-
fortis, which in 4 hours will purge it from all dirt and impurity, and make it fit
for parting, which is thus done. If the silver gilt be fine enough for wire, they
only melt it in a wind-furnace, and cast it melted into a large tub of water,
that they may have it in small pieces; but if it be only standard, they first fine
it on the test. These small pieces taken out of the water, and well dried, are
put into a tapering glass, a foot high, and 7 inches at the bottom; then the
glasses are about -^ charged with aquafortis, and set in a range of iron, covered
2 inches deep with sand, with a gentle charcoal fire under it. Small bubbles
will soon rise, and the water also nui over. If so, they take oflF the glasses till
they cease boiling, or else pour some of it into a vessel. If lead be mixed with
it they cannot keep it from running over. When the water has once ceased
from this ebullition, it will rise no more. The greenness of the water shows
the quantity of copper contained in it. If the water boil over, it will penetrate
the bricks and wood. They commonly let it stand a night on the iron range,
with a gentle heat under it, and in the morning gently pour off the water im-
pregnated with all the silver, the gold lying like black dirt at the bottom, which
being washed out is put into small parting glasses, and set over the sand with
fair conduit-water for an hour, and then the water poured off. This is repeated
5 or 6 times, to separate the salt from the gold, which is now fit to be melted,
and cast into an ingot.

To regain the silver, they have large round washing-bowls, lined within with
melted rosin and pitch, for otherwise the water would heat the wood and pene-
trate the sides of the bowl, covered with copper plates 10 inches long, 6 wide,
and half or more thick. Into these bowls they pour plenty of water, the more
the better the verditer, and then the silver- water; which working on the softer
metal of copper leaves all the silver in very fine sand, at the bottom and sides
of the bowl, and on the plates of copper ; which being taken out is washed,
dried, and melted for any use. Concerning the plates it is observable, that if
any brass or shruff metal be in them, they gather very little of the silver, the
latter mixing with it.

Verditer is made from the copper-water poured off from the silver and whit-
ing, in this manner: they put into a tub 100 pound weight of whiting, on which
they pour the copper-water, and stir them together every day for some hours
together. When the water grows pale, they take it out and set it by for fur-
ther use, and pour on more of the green-water, and so continue till the verditer
be made. Which being taken out, is laid on large pieces of chalk in the sun,
till it be dry for the market. The water taken from the verditer is put into a
copper, and boiled till it comes to the thickness of water-gruel, now principally

456 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

consisting of saltpetre reduced, most of the spirit of vitriol being gone with the
copper into the verditer. A dish full whereof being put into the other materials
for aquafortis, is redistilled, and makes a double water, almost twice as good as
that without it.

I come next to the second way of refining, viz. by the test. This separates
all metals from silver, except gold, because they swim over it when they are all
melted together. The test is thus made: they have an iron mould of an oval
form, and 2 inches deep, with 3 arches of iron at bottom, set at equal dis-
tances, 2 fingers wide, if the great diameter of it be 14 inches long, and so
proportionably in greater or less tests. This cavity they fill with fine powder
of bone-ashes, moistened with lixivium made with soap-ashes. Some use cakes
of pot-ashes, or other ashes well cleansed, and so pressed well together with a
muller, that it becomes very close and smooth at the top. A cavity is left above
in the midst of it, to contain the melted silver; this cavity being longest in the
middle: for the bone-ashes come up parallel to 4;he circumference of the mould,
only a small channel left in that end which is most remote from the blast, for
the running off of the baser metals, and so is made to decline to the centre of
the test, where it is not above half an inch deep. The test thus made, is set
annealing 24 hours, and then it is set in a chimney a yard high, parallel almost
to the nose of a pair of large bellows ; then the silver is put in, which being
covered all over with billets of barked oak, the blast begins, and continues
strongly all the while. The lead purified from all silver, which they call the
soap of metals, is first put in, and melts down with the silver; then the lead
and copper swim at the top, and run over the test ; the motion the refiner helps
with a long rod of iron, drawn along the surface of the silver towards the fore-
mentioned slit, and often stirring all the metal, that the impurer may rise the
better : and by thus continuing, the separation is made in 2 or 3 hours. The
greatest part of the lead flies away in fumes.

If the lead be gone before all the copper, the metal will rise in small red fiery
bubbles; and then they say it drives, and more lead must be added. The force
of the blast drives the upper metal to the lower side of the test, and promotes
its iTinning over. When the silver is fully refined, it looks like very pure
quicksilver; then they take off their fogs and let it cool. In the cooling, the
silver will frequently from the middle spring up in small rays, and fall down
again. If moist silver be put into that which is melted, it will spring into the
fire. A good test will serve two or three firings. As soon as the silver will
hold together, they take it out of the test, and beat it on an anvil into a round
figure, for the melting pot ; which being set in a wind furnace, surrounded with
coal, and covered with an iron cap, that no charcoal fall into it, it is then

VOt. Xn.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 457

melted. If any dross or filth be in the melting-pot, they throw in some tincal,
which collects the dross together, that it may be separated from it. These
melting-pots are never burned, but only dried, and will last a whole day, if they
be not suffered to cool : but if they once cool, they infallibly crack.

The next is the almond furnace or sweep. Here are separated all sorts of
metals from cinders, parts of melting-pots, tests, brick, and all other harder
bodies, which must be first beaten into small pieces with a hammer, and an iron
plate. Those which stick but superficially to the silver, they wash off thus :
they have a wooden round instrument, 2 feet wide, somewhat hollow in the
middle, with a handle on each side. On this they put the materials, and hold
them in a tub of water below the surface, and so waving it to and fro, all the
lighter and looser matter is separated from the metal.

The furnace is 6 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet thick. It is made of
brick, having a hole in the middle of the top, 8 inches over, growing narrower
towards the bottom, where on the fore part it ends in a small hole, encompassed
with a semicircle of iron, to keep the melted metal. About the middle of the
back is another hole, to receive the nose of a pair of great bellows. The night
before they begin, charcoal is kindled in the furnace to anneal it: and when
hot, they throw 2 or 3 shovels of coal to one of the fore-mentioned stuff, and
so proceed during the whole work, which continues 3 days and nights without
intermission. After 8 or 10 hours the metal begins to run, and when the re-
ceiver below is pretty full, they lade it out with an iron ladle, and cast it into
sows in cavities or forms made with ashes. They frequently stop the passage-
hole with cinders to keep in the heat ; and when they think a quantity of metal
is melted, they unstop the hole to pass it off. If the matter be hard to flux,
they throw in some slag, which is the recrement of iron, to give it fusion. A
stinking blue smoke proceeds from the furnace, and all by-standers look like
dead men. To get the silver from these metals, they now use no other art than
that of the test; and the same to refine the copper from the litharge.

The last way of separation is by quicksilver. And this is for filings of small
workers and goldsmiths, wherein gold and silver are mixed with dust, &c. This
dust is put into a hand-mill with quicksilver, and being continually turned upon
that and the metals, an amalgama is made of them ; then fair water poured in
carries off the dust, as it runs out again by a small quill. This amalgama is put
into an iron vessel with a bolt-head, set in the fire, having an iron-neck 3 feet
long, to which a receiver is fitted. The mercury distils off into the receiver,
and the gold and silver remain in the bolt-head.

VOL. II. 3 N

458 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1^78.

On the English Alum Works, By Daniel Colwall, Esq. N° 142, p. 1052.

Alum is made of a stone dug out of a mine, of a sea- weed and urine.* — ^The
stone is found in most of the hills between Scarborough and the river Tees in
the county of York. As also near Preston in Lancashire. It is of a bluish
colour, and will cleave like Cornish-slate. That mine which lies deep in the
earth, and is indifferently well moistened with springs is the best. The dry
mine is not good : and too much moisture cankers and corrupts the stone ;
making it nitrous. In this mine are found several veins of stone called doggers ;
of the same colour, but not so good. Here are also found those which are com-
monly called snake-stones. For the more convenient working of the mine,
which sometimes lies 20 yards under a surface, they begin the work on the
declivity of a hill, where they may also be well furnished with water. They
dig down the mine by stages, to save carriage; and so throw the mineral down
near the places where they calcine it ; being exposed to the air before it is cal-
cined, it will moulder in pieces, and yield a liquor of which copperas may be
made; but being calcined, is fit for alum. As long as it continues in the earth
or in water, it remains a hard stone. Sometimes a liquor will issue out of the
side of the mine, which by the heat of the sun becomes natural alum. The
mineral is calcined with cinders of Newcastle coal, wood, and furzes. The fire
is made about 1^ feet thick, 2 yards broad, and 10 yards long. Between the
fires are stops made with wet rubbish; so that any one or more of them may be
kindled without prejudice to the rest.

After that ^ or 10 yards thickness of broken mineral are laid on this fuel,
and five or six of them are so covered ; they then begin to kindle the fuel ; and
as the fires rise towards the top, they lay on fresh mineral. So that, to what
height soever the heap be raised, which is oftentimes about 20 yards, the fires
without any more fuel will burn to the top, and stronger than at the first
kindling, as long as any sulphur remains in the stones.

* Alum is a triple salt composed of vitriolic acid, alumina and potash or ammonia. The pot-
ash obtained by the incineration of the sea weed here mentioned (or from the ashes of other vegeta-
bles) serves (like the ammonia contained in urine) to combine with the superabundant acid, a
circumstance essential to the crystallization of the aluminous salt, and to its purification from iron or
any other metallic or earthy ingredient. The stone or ore of alum above described is termed by
mineralogists schistus aluminaris, and contains besides the earth of alum, sulphur and iron, a portion
of silica and magnesia, and generally some bituminous matter. By the process of calcination, the
sulphur is converted into sulphuric or vitriolic acid, and combines with the aluminous earth. By the
processes of lixiviation and boiling this union is further promoted, and the insoluble parts (consisting
chiefly of silica and oxyd of iron) are separated ; and on the addition of the ashes of the sea weed

(kelp) and urine, the crystallization (after sufficient evaporation of the liquor) is effected ^The

terms " nitre and nitrous" which frequently occur in this paper are improper.

▼OL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 45^

In calcining these stones, the wind often does hurt, by forcing the fire in
some places too quickly through the mineral, leaving it black and half burned;
and in others burning it too much, leaving it red. But where the fire passes
slowly, and of its own accord, it leaves the mineral white, which yields the best
and greatest quantity of liquor.

The mineral thus calcined, is put into pits of water, supported with frames of
wood, and rammed on all sides with clay, about 10 yards long, 5 yards broad,
and 5 feet deep; set with a current, that turns the liquor into a receptacle,
from whence it is pumped into another pit of mineral. And thus every pit of
liquor before it comes to boiling, is pumped into four several pits of mineral ;
and every pit of mineral is steeped in four several liquors, before it be thrown
away; the last pit being always fresh mineral. The mineral thus steeped in
each of the several liquors about 24 hours, is of course four days in passing tlie
four several pits, from whence the liquors pass to the boiling-house.

The water, or virgin-liquor, often gains in the first pit 2 pounds weight ; in
the second it increases to 5 pounds weight ; in the third to 8 pounds weight ;
and in the last pit, which is always fresh mineral, to 12 pounds weight; and so
in this proportion, according to the goodness of the mineral, and the proper
calcining : for sometimes the liquors passing the four several pits, will not be
above 6 or 7 pounds weight. Yet often the liquor of 7 or 8 pounds weight
produces more alum than that of 10 or 12 pounds, either from the badness of
the mineral, or, as usually, the bad calcining of it. And if, by passing the weak
liquor through another pit of fresh mineral, you bring it to 10 or 12 pounds
weight, yet there will be less alum with it, than when it was but 8 pounds
weight. For what it gains from the last pit of mineral, will be mostly nitre and
slam, which spoil the good liquors, and disorder the whole house, until the
slam be wrought out. What they call slam is first perceived by the redness of
the liquor when it comes from the pit, occasioned either by the badness of the
mineral, or more commonly the over or under calcining it ; which in the settler
sinks to the bottom, and there becomes of a muddy consistence and a dark
colour. That liquor which comes whitest from the pits is the best. When a
work is first begun, they make alum of the liquor only that comes from the pits
of mineral, without any other ingredients. And so it might continue, but that
it would spend so much liquor as not to quit cost.

Kelp is made of a sea-weed, called tangle. It grows on rocks by the sea side,
between high and low water mark. Being dried it will burn and run like pitch;
when cold and hard it is beaten to ashes, steeped in water, and the lees drawn
off to about 2 pounds weight.

Because the country people who furnish the work with urine, sometimes mix

3 N 2

460 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

it with sea- water, which cannot be discovered by weight : they try it by putting
it to some of the boiling liquor : for if the urine be good, it will work like yest
put to beer or ale ; but if mixed, it will stir no more than so much water. It
is observed, that the best urine is that which comes from poor labouring people,
who drink but little strong liquor.*

The boiling pans are made of lead, Q feet long, 5 feet broad, and 2^ deep,
set upon iron plates, about 2 inches thick ; which pans are commonly new cast,
and the plates repaired 5 times in 2 years. — -When the work is begun, and
alum once made, then they save the liquor which comes from the alum, or
wherein the alum shoots, which they call mothers. With this they till two
thirds of the boilers, and put in one third part of fresh liquor, which comes
from the pits. Being thus filled up with cold liquor, the fires having never
been drawn out, they will boil again in less than 2 hours time ; and in every
two hours the liquor will waste 4 inches, and then the boilers are filled up again
with green liquor.-— The liquor, if good, will in boiling seem greasy at the top :
if nitrous it will be thick, muddy, and red.-J- In boiling 24 hours, it will be 36
pounds weight ; then about a hogshead of the lees of kelp is put into the boiler
of about two penny weight, which will reduce the whole boiler to about 27
pounds weight. — If the liquor be good, as soon as the lees of kelp are put into
the boiler, they work like yest put to beer : but if the lijquor in the boiler be
nitrous, the kelp-lees will stir it but very little ; and in that case they put in the
more and stronger lees. — Presently after the kelp lees are put into the boiler,
all the liquor is drawn into a settler as large as the boiler, made of lead, in which
it stands about two hours; in which time most of the nitre and slam sink to the
bottom. — ^This separation is made by means of the kelp-lees. For when the
whole boiler consists of green liquor drawn from the pits, it is of power strong
enough to cast off the slam and nitre : but when mothers are used, the kelp-
lees are needful to make the said separation. — ^Then the liquor is scooped out
of the settler into a cooler, made of deal-boards, and rammed with clay. Into
this is put 20 gallons or more of urine, more or less, according to the goodness
of the liquor ; for if the liquor be red,-!" and consequently nitrous, the more
urine is required. In temperate weather the liquor stands 4 days in the cooler.
The second day the alum begins to strike, gather and harden about the sides,
and at the bottom of the cooler. If the liquor should stand in the cooler above
4 days, they say it would turn to copperas — The use of urine is both to cast off
the slam, and to keep the kelp-lees from hardening the alum too much. In hot
weather the liquors will be a day longer in cooling, and the alum in gathering,-

* This alum consists of 4« ingredients. + This redness is owing not to nitre but iron.

TfeL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 46l

than when the weather is temperate. In frosty weather the cold strikes the
akim too soon, not giving time for the nitre and slam to sink to the bottom,
and thus they are mixed with the alum. This produces double the quantity;
but being foul it is consumed in the washing.

When the liquor has stood 4 days in the cooler : then that called mothers is
scooped into a cistern, the alum remaining on the sides and at the bottom ; and
from thence the mothers are pumped back into the boiler again. So that every
5 days the liquor is boiled again till it evaporate, or turn into alum and slam. —
The alum taken from the sides and bottom of the cooler is put into a cistern,
and washed with water that has been used for the same purpose, being about 12
pounds weight. After which it is roached in the following manner : — Being
washed, it is put into another pan with a quantity of water, where it melts and
boils a little ; it is then scooped into a large cask, where it commonly stands
10 days, and is then fit to take down for the market. The liquors are weighed
by troy-weight. So that half a pint of liquor must weigh more than so much
water, by so many penny weights.

The English Green Copperas. By Dan. Colwall, Esq. N° 142, p. 1056.

Copperas-stones,* which some call gold-stones, are found on the sea-shore in
Essex, Hampshire, and so westward. There are great quantities on the cliffs ;
but not so good as those on the shore, where the tides ebb and flow over them.
The best of them are of a bright shining silver colour : the next such as are of
a rusty deep yellow : the worst, such as have gravel and dirt in them, of a dull
or umber colour. In the midst of these stones, are sometimes found the shells
of cockles, and other small shell fishes ; also small pieces of the planks of ships
and of seacoal. The brightest of these stones are used for wheel-lock pistols
and fusees. — ^To make the copperas, they prepare beds according as the ground
will permit. Those at Deptford are about 100 feet long, 15 feet broad at the
top, and 12 feet deep, shelving all the way to the bottom. They ram the bed
very well first with strong clay, and then with the rubbish of chalk ; whereby the
liquor which drains out of the solution of the stones, is conveyed into a wooden
shallow trough, laid in the middle of the bed, and covered with a board; being
also boarded on all sides, and laid lower at one end than the other, the liquor is
conveyed into a cistern under the boiling-house. — ^When the beds are indiffer-
ently well dried, they lay on the stones about 2 feet thick. — These stones will
be 5 or 6 years before they yield any considerable quantity of liquor; and before
that, the liquor they yield is but weak. They ripen by the sun and rain : yet

• Martial pyrites j from which by the process here described is extracted sulphate of iron, or
green vitriol.

402 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^ANNO I678.

experience proves, that watering the stones, although with water prepared by
lying in the sun, and poured through very small holes of a watering-pot, only
retards the work. In time these stones turn into a kind of vitriolic earth, which
swells and ferments like leavened dough. — When the bed is come to perfection,
then once in 4 years they refresh it, by laying new stones on the top. — ^When
they make a new bed, they take a good quantity of the old fermented earth,
and mingle with new stones, whereby the work is hastened. Thus the old
earth never becomes useless.

The cistern before mentioned is made of strong oaken boards, well joined
and chalked. That at Deptford will contain 100 tuns of liquor. Great care
is to be taken, that the liquor does not drain through the beds or out of the
cistern. The best way to prevent this, is to divide the cistern in the middle by
oaken boards, chalked as before, whereby any one of them may be mended in
case of a defect. The more rain falls, then the more, but the weaker, will be
the liquor. The goodness of it is tried by weights prepared for that purpose :
J 4 penny weight is rich: or an egg being put into the liquor, the higher it
swims above the liquor, the stronger it is : sometimes the egg will swim near
half above the liquor. Within one minute after an egg is put in, the ambient
liquor will boil and froth ; and in 3 minutes the shell will be quite worn off.
A drop of this liquor falling on the manufactures of hemp, flax, or cotton-
wool, will presently burn a hole through it ; as also in woollen and leather.

The liquor is pumped out of the aforesaid cistern into a boiler of lead, about
8 feet square, containing about 12 tuns, which is thus ordered : first they lay
long pieces of cast iron, 12 inches square, as long as the breadth of the boiler,
about 12 inches from each other, and 24 inches above the surface of the fire.
Then crosswise they lay ordinary flat iron bars, as close as they can lie, the
sides being made up with brick-work. In the middle of the bottom of this
boiler is laid a trough of lead, wherein they put at first 100 pounds weight of
old iron.

The fuel for boiling is Newcastle coal. By degrees in the boiling, they put
in more iron, amounting in all to 1500 pounds weight in a boiling; and as the
liquor wastes in boiling, they pump in fresh liquor into the boiler. Hence, and
by a defect in ordering the fire, they were formerly above 20 days before it was
finished. When done, they try by taking up a small quantity of liquor into a
shallow earthen pan, and observing how soon it vvill gather and crust about the
sides of it. But of late, by the ingenious contrivance of Sir Nicolas Crisp, the
work is much facilitated. For at his work at Deptford, they boil off 3 boilers
of ordinary liquor in one week. Which is done, first by ordering the furnace
so as that the heat is conveyed to all parts of the bottom and sides of the fur-

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 4^3

nace. Then, instead of pumping cold liquor into the boiler to supply the waste
in boiling, which checked the work sometimes 10 hours, Sir Nicolas has a vessel
of lead, which he calls a heater, placed at the end of the boiler, and a little
higher, supported by bars of iron as before, and filled with liquor, which by a
conveyance of heat from the furnace is kept near boiling hot ; and hence he
continually supplies the waste of the boiler, without hindering the boiling.
Thirdly, by putting in due proportions of iron from time to time into the boiler.
As soon as they perceive the liquor to boil slowly, they put in more iron, which
will soon quicken it. If they do not continually supply the boiling liquor with
iron, the copperas will gather to the bottom of the boiler and melt. And so it
will do if the liquor be not presently drawn off from the boiler into a cooler, so
soon as it is sufficiently done.

The cooler, made of tarras, is oblong, 20 feet long, g feet over at the top,
and 5 feet deep, tapered towards the bottom. Into this they let the liquor run,
as soon as it is boiled enough. The copperas herein will be gathering or shoot-
ing 14 or 15 days; and it gathers as much on the sides as in the bottom, viz.
above 5 inches thick. Some put bushes into the cooler, about which the copperas
will gather. But at Deptford they make no use of them. That which sticks
to the sides and to the bushes is of a bright green ; that in the bottom of a foul
and dirty colour. — At the end of 14 days, they convey the liquor into another
cooler, and reserve it to be boiled again with new liquor. — ^The copperas they
shovel on a floor adjoining, so that the liquor may drain from it into a cooler.
The steam which comes from the boiling is of an acrimonious smell.

Copperas may be boiled without iron, but with difficulty.* Without it the
boiler will be in danger of melting. Sometimes in stirring the earth on the
beds^ they find pieces of copperas produced by lying in the sun.

Account of the Salt Springs and Salt making at Droitwich in JVorcestershire. By
Dr. Thomas Rastell. N° 142, p. 1050.

The country has no great hills, but many small risings. On the other side
the river Severn are Aberly Hills, at about 7 miles distance from us. There are
many salt springs about the town, which is seated by a brook-side called Sal-
wark-Brook, which arise both in the brook and in the ground near it, though
there are but 3 pits that are made use of. The plants growing about the springs
I find much the same as in other places ; but where the springs are saltest there
grows nothing at all; only by the brackish ditches there grows aster atticus,
with a pale flower, which I find no where else with us.

* The unsaturated vitriolic acid acts upon the iron thus added, and consequently the quantity of
▼itriolic salt (green copperas) is increased.

1

464 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ' [aNNO lOjS,

The depth of the springs is various ; some rise on the top of the ground
which are not so salt as others : those that are in the pits we make use of, are
various also. The great pit, which is called Upwich Pit, is 30 feet deep, in which
are 3 distinct springs rising in the bottom. The pit is about 10 feet square; the
sides are made with square elms, jointed in at the full length, which I suppose
is occasioned by the saltness of the ground, which appears to me to have been
a bog, the surface of it is made of ashes. That it was originally a bog I am in-
duced to believe ; for, not many years since digging to try the foundation of a
seal, for so we call the houses we make salt in, I thrust a long staff over head.

There are no hot springs near us : and the brine is generally colder than
other water ; yet it never freezes, but the rain water that lies on the brine in
extreme hard frosts will freeze, though not much.

I never observed nor heard of any shells in the earth. For the nature of the
soil about the town on the lower side, it is a black rich earth, under which 2 or
3 feet is a stiff gravelly clay ; then marl. Those that make wells for fresh
water, if they find springs in the marl, they are generally fresh; but if they
sink through the marl, they come to a whitish clay mixed with gravel, in
which the springs are more or less brackish.

In the great pit at Upwich, we have at once 3 sorts of brine, which we call
by the names of first-man, middle-man, and last-man, these sorts being of differ-
ent strengths. The brine is drawn by a pump; that which is in the bottom is
first pumped out, which is that we call first-man, &c. A quart measure of this
brine weighs 29 ounces troy, but of distilled water only 24 ounces. This brine
yields above a fourth part salt; so that 4 tuns of brine make above 1 tun of salt.
The two other sorts less, or 28 ounces. And the pit yields 450 bushels of salt
per day. In the best pit at Netherwich a quart of brine weighs 28 ounces and
a half; this pit is 18 feet deep, and 4 feet broad, and yields as much brine
every 24 hours, as makes about 40 bushels of salt. The worst pit at Nether-
wich is of the same breadth and depth as the former; a quart of brine out of
which weighs 27 ounces, and yields as much brine daily as makes about 30
bushels of salt.

The fuel which was heretofore used was all wood ; which, since the iron works,
is destroyed, that all the wood at any reasonable distance will not supply the
works one quarter of the year; so that now we use almost all pit-coal, which is
brought to us by land, from 13 or 14 miles distance.

The vats we boil the brine in are made of lead, cast into a flat plate, 5 feet
and a half long, and 3 feet over; then the sides and ends beaten up, and a little
raised in the middle, which are set upon brick-work, called ovens, in which is a
grate to make the fire on, and an ash-hole which we call a trunk. In some seals

VOL. xii.] Philosophical transactions. 465

are 6 of these pans, in some 5, some 4, some 3, some 2. In each of these pans
is boiled at a time as much brine as makes 3 pecks of white salt. For clarifying
the salt we should have little need, were it not for dust accidentally falling into
the brine. The brine of itself being so clear that nothing can be clearer. For
clarifying it, we use nothing but the whites of eggs; of which we take a quarter
of a white, and put it into a gallon or two of brine, which being beaten with the
hand, lathers as if it were soap, a small quantity of which froth put into each
vat, raises all the scum, the white of one egg clarifying 20 bushels of salt ; by
which means our salt is as white as any thing can be; neither has it any ill
savour, as that salt has that is clarified with blood. For granulating it we use
nothing at all ; for the brine is so strong of itself, that unless it be often stirred,
it will make salt as large grained as bay-salt. I have boiled brine to a candy
height, and it has produced clods of salt as clear as the clearest alum, like isle
of May salt ; so that we are necessitated to put a small quantity of rosin into
the brine, to make the grain ofjthe salt small.

Besides the white salt above spoken of, we have another sort, called clod-salt,
which adheres to the bottoms of the vats, and which after the white salt is laded
out, is digged up with a steel picker. This is the strongest salt I have seen,
and is most used for salting bacon and neats tongues; it makes the bacon redder
than other salt, and makes the fat eat firm : if the swine are fed with mast, it
hardens the fat almost as much as if fed with pease, and salted with white salt.
It is very much used by country-women, to put into their runnet-pots, esteem-
ing it better for their cheese. These clods are used to broil meat with, being
laid on coals ; but we account it too strong to salt beef with, as it takes away
too much of its sweetness. There is a third sort of salt, called knockings,
which candies on the stales of the barrow, as the brine runs from the salt after
it is laded out of the vats : this salt is most used for the same purposes as the
clod salt, though it is not altogether so strong. There is also a fourth sort,
called scrapings, being a coarse sort of salt that is mixed with dross and dust,
that cleaves to the tops of the sides of the vats ; this salt is scraped off the vats
when we reach them, that is, when we take the vats off the fires to beat up the
bottom ; and is bought by the poor sort of people to salt meat with. A fifth sort
is pigeon salt ; which is nothing but the brine running out through the crack of
a vat, and hardens to a clod on the outside over the fire. Lastly, the salt loaves
are the finest of the white salt, the grain of which is made something finer than
ordinary, that it may the better adhere together, which is done by adding a little
more rosin, and is beaten into the barrows when it is laded out of the vat.

Our salt is not so apt to dissolve as Cheshire salt, nor as that salt that is made
by dissolving bay-salt and clarifying it, which is called salt upon salt ; which ap-
pears by our long keeping it without any fire.

VOL. II. 3 O .

466 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iS/S.

If it is asked why we use not iron-pans as in Cheshire and other places? I
answer, there have been trials made both of forged iron-pans and cast-iron.
The former the strength of the brine so corrodes, that it quickly wears them out;
the latter the brine breaks.

On the Culture, and Use of Maize.* By Mr. Winthorp. N° 142, p. 1065.

The corn used in New England, before the English planted there, is called
by the natives, Weachin, known by the name of Maize, in some southern parts
of America; where, and even in the northern parts, amongst the English and
Dutch, who have plenty of wheat and grain, this sort of corn is still much in
use both for bread and other kind of food. The ear is for the most part about
a span long, composed of several rows of grains, 8 or more, according to the
goodness of the ground ; and in each row, usually above 30 grains, of various
colours, as red, white, yellow, blue, olive, greenish, black, speckled, striped, &c.
sometimes in the same field, and the same ear. But the white and yellow are
the most common. The ear is clothed and armed with several strong thick
husks. Not only defending it from the cold of the night, and from unseasonable
rains, but also from the birds. The stalk grows to the height of 6 or 8 feet ;
more or less, according to the condition of the ground, or kind of seed. The
Virginian grows taller than that of New England. And there is another sort
used by the Northern Indians far up in the country, that grows much shorter
than that of New England. It is jointed like a cane, and is full of sweet juice,
like the sugar-cane. And a syrup as sweet as sugar may be made of it. Also
meats sweetened with it, have not been distinguished from the like sweetened
with sugar. At every joint there are long leaves, almost like flags, and at the
top a bunch of flowers, like the blossoms of rye. It is planted between the
middle of March and the beginning of June. But most commonly from the
middle of April to the middle of May. In the pure northerly parts they have
a peculiar kind called Mohawks corn, which though planted in June, will be ripe
in season. The stalks of this kind are shorter, and the ears grow nearer the
bottom of the stalk, and are generally of divers colours.

The manner of planting is in rows, at equal distance every way, about 5 or 6
feet. They open the earth with a hoe, taking away the surface 3 or 4 inches
deep, and the breadth of the hoe ; and so throw in 4 or 5 grains, a little distant
one from another, and cover them with earth. If two or three grow, it is well;
for some of them are usually destroyed by birds, or mouse-squirrels. The corn
grown up a hand's length, they cut up the weeds, and loosen the earth about it,
with a broad hoe : repeating this labour, as the weeds grow. When the stalk be-
gins to grow high, they draw a little earth about it : and upon the putting forth of

* Zea Mays. Linn.

^OL. xrr.] t^YldidlfntCAL transactions. 467

the ear, so much as to make a little hill, like a hop-hill; after this, they have no
other business about it, till harvest. After it is gathered, it must, except laid
very thin, be presently stripped from the husks ; otherwise it will heat, grow
mouldy, and sometimes sprout. The common way is to weave the ears together
in long traces by some parts of the husk left thereon. These traces they hang
upon stages or other bearers within doors, or without ; for, hung in that manner,
they will keep good and sweet all the winter after, though exposed to all weathers.
The natives commonly thresh it as they gather it, and dry it well on mats in the
sun; then bestow it in holes in the ground, well lined with withered grass and
mats, and then covered with the like, and over all with earth : and thus it is
kept very well till they use it. The English have now taken to a better way of
planting by the help of the plough, in this manner : in the planting time they
plough single furrows through the whole field, about 6 feet distant, more or less,
as they see convenient. To these they plough others across at the same distance^
Where these meet they throw in the corn, and cover it either with the hoe, of
by running another furrow with the plough. When the weeds begin to overtop
the corn, then they plough over the rest of the field between the planted fur-
rows, and so turn in the weeds. This is repeated once, when they begin to hill
the corn with the hoe; and thus the ground is better loosened than with the hoe,
and the roots of the corn have more liberty to spread. Where any weeds escape
the plough, they use the hoe. Where the ground is bad or worn out, the Indians
used to put two or three of the fishes called aloofes under or adjacent to each
corn-hill; whereby they had hfiany times a crop double to what the ground would
otherwise have produced. The English have learned the like husbandry, where
these aloofes come up in great plenty, or where they are near the fishing-stages;
having there the heads and garbage of cod-fish, at no charge but the fetching.

The fields thus ploughed for this corn, after the crop is off^, are almost as well
fitted for English corn, especially summer grain, as pease, or summer wheat, as
if lying fallow, they had had a very good summer tilth. The Indians and some
English, at every corn-hill, plant with the corn, a kind of French or Turkey
beans : the stalks of the corn serving instead of poles for the beans to climb up
with. And in the vacant places between the hills they plant squashes and pom-
pions ; loading the ground with as much as it will bear. And many, after the
last weeding, sprinkle turnep-seed between the hills, and so after harvest have
a good crop of turneps.

The stalks of this corn, cut up before too much dried, and so laid up, are
good winter-fodder for cattle. But they usually leave them on the ground for
the cattle to feed on. The husks about the ear are good fodder, given for change
sometimes after hay. The Indian women slit them into narrow parts, and so
weave them artificially into baskets of several fashions. This corn the Indians

3o2

408 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1078.

dressed several ways for their food. Sometimes boiling it whole till it swelled
and became tender, and so either eating it alone, or with their fish or venison
instead of bread. Sometimes bruising in mortars, and so boiling it. But com-
monly this way, viz. by parching it in ashes, or embers, so artificially stirring it,
as without burning, to be very tender, and turned almost inside outward, and
also white and floury. This they sift very well from the ashes, and beat it in
their wooden mortars, with a long stone for a pestle, into fine meal. This is a
constant food at home, and especially when they travel, being put up in a bag,
and so at all times ready for eating, either dry or mixed with water. They find
it very wholesome diet, and is that their soldiers carry with them in time of
war. The Indians have another sort of provision out of this corn, which they
call sweet-corn. When the corn in the ear is full, while it is yet green, it has
a very sweet taste. This they gather, boil, and then dry, and so put it up into
bags or baskets, for their use : boiling it again, either whole or grossly beaten,
when they eat it, either by itself, or among their fish or venison, or beavers, or
other flesh, accounting it a principal dish. These green and sweet ears they
sometimes roast before the fire or in the embers, and so eat the corn ; by which
means, they have sufficient supply of food, though their old store be done.
The English, of the full ripe corn ground make very good bread. But it is
not ordered as other corn ; for if it be mixed into stiff paste, it will not be so
good, as if made only a little stifFer than for puddings ; and so baked in a very
hot oven, standing therein all day or all night. Because on the first pouring
of it on the oven floor, it spreads abroad ; they pour a second layer or heap
upon every first, and thereby make so many loaves. It is also sometimes mixed
with half or a third part of rye or wheat meal, and so with leaven or yest made
into loaves of very good bread.

Before they had mills, having first watered and husked the corn, and then
beaten it in wooden mortars, the coarser part sifted from the meal, and separated
from the loose hulls by the wind, they boiled to a thick batter: to which being
cold, they added so much of the fine meal, as would serve to stiffen it into paste,
whereof they made very good bread. But the best sort of food which the English
make of this corn, is that they call samp. Having first watered it about half an
hour, and then beaten it in a mortar, or else ground it in a hand or other mill,
into the size of rice, they next sift the flour, and winnow the hulls from it.
Then they boil it gently till it be tender, and so with milk or butter and sugar,
make it into a very pleasant and wholesome dish. This was the most usual diet
of the first planters in these parts, and is still in use amongt them, as well in
fevers, as in health : and was often prescribed by the learned Dr. Wilson to his
patients in London. And of the Indians that live much upon this corn, the
English have been informed by them, that the disease of the stone is very seldom

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 46p

known among them. The English have also found out a way to make very good
beer of grain: that is, either of bread made hereof, or else by malting it. The
way of making beer of bread, is by breaking or cutting it into great lumps, about
as large as a man's fist, to be mashed, and so proceeded with as malt, and the
impregnated liquor, as wort, either adding or omitting hops, as is desired.

To make good malt of this corn, a particular way must be taken. The barley
malt-masters have used all their skill to make good malt of it the ordinary way,
but cannot effect it ; that is, that the whole grain be malted, and tender and
floury, as in other malt. For it is found by experience, that this corn, before
it be fully malted, must sprout out both ways, i. e. both root and blade, to a
great length, of a finger at least: if more, the better; for which it must be
laid on a heap a convenient time.

To avoid all difficulties, this way was tried and found effectual. Take away
the top of the earth in a garden or field 2 or 3 inches, throwing it up half one
way and half the other. Then lay the corn for malt all over the ground, so as
to cover it. Then cover the corn with the earth that was pared off, and there
is no more to do, till you see all the plot of ground like a green field covered
over with the sprouts of the corn, which will be within 10 or 14 days, accord-
ing to the time of the year. Then take it up, and shake the earth from it and
dry it. This way every grain that is good will grow, and be mellow, floury,
and very sweet; and the beer made of it be wholesome, pleasant, and of a good
brown colour. Yet beer made of the bread, as aforesaid, being as well coloured,
wholesome, pleasant, and more durable, is most in use; because the way of malt-
ing this corn, last described, is as yet but little known among them.

Manner of making Malt in Scotland. By Sir Robert Moray. N° 142, p. IO69.

Malt is there made of no other grain but barley; of which there are two
kinds: one, which has four rows of grains on the ear, the other, two rows. The
first is the more commonly used, but the other makes the best malt. The more
recently barley has been threshed it makes the better malt; but if it has been
threshed six weeks or upwards, it proves not good malt, unless it be kept in an
equal temper, of which it easily fails, especially if it be kept up against a wall ;
for that which lies in the middle of the heap is freshest, that which lies on the
outsides and at top is over-dried, that which is next the wall shoots forth, and
that which is at the bottom rots. The best way to preserve threshed barley long
in good temper, is not to separate the chaff from it. But as long as it is un-
threshed it is always good. Brewers use to keep their barley in large rooms on
boarded floors, laid about a foot in depth, and so turned over now and then
with scoops. Barley that has been over heated in the stacks or barns, before it
be separated from the straw, will never prove good for malt, nor any other use.

470 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I678.

But though it heat a little after it is threshed, and be kept in the chaff, it will
not be worse, but rather better for it; as it will come sooner, and more equally.

Take then good barley, newly threshed, and well purged from the chaff, and
put hereof 8 bolls, that is, about 6 English quarters, in a stone trough. Where
let it infuse, till the water be of a bright reddish colour, which will be in about
3 days, more or less, according to the moistness or dryness, the size of the
grain, the season of the year, or temper of the weather. In summer malt
never makes well. In winter it will need longer infusion than in the spring or
autumn. It may be known when steeped enough, by other marks besides the
colour of the water; as the excessive swelling of the grain, or, if over steeped,
by two much softness; being, when in the right temper, like that barley which
is prepared to make broth of, or the barley called by some, urge wonder*
When the barley is sufficiently steeped, take it out of the trough, and lay it on
heaps, to let the water drain from it. Then after 2 or 3 hours turn it over
with a scoop, and lay it in a new heap about 20 or 24 inches deep. This heap
they call the coming heap. And in the managing of this heap aright lies the
great skill. In this heap it will lie 40 hours, more or less, according to the
forementioned qualities of the grain, &c. before it come to the right temper of
malt. Whilst it lies in this heap it is to be carefully looked to during the first
15 or l6 hours. For about that time, the grains will begin to put forth the
root, which when they have equally and fully done, the malt must, within an
hour after, be turned over with a scoop, otherwise the grains will begin to put
forth the blade or spire also, which by all means must be prevented ; for hereby
the malt will be utterly spoiled, both as to pleasantness of taste and strength.

If all the malt come not equally, for that which lies in the middle, being
warmest, will usually come first ; turn it over, so as the outmost may lie inmost,
and so leave it till all come alike. As soon as the malt is sufficiently come,
turn it over, and spread it to a depth not exceeding 5 or 6 inches. And by the
time it is all spread out, begin and turn it over and over again, 3 or 4 times.
Afterwards turn it over in like manner, once in 4 or 5 hours, making the heap
thicker by degrees, and continuing so to do constantly for the space of 48
hours at least. This frequent turning of it over cools, dries, and deads the
grain ; whereby it becomes mellow, melts easily in brewing, and then separates
entirely from the husk. Then throw up the malt into a heap as high as you
can. Where let it lie, till it grows as hot as your hand can endure it: which
■ usually is in about 30 hours space. This perfects the sweetness and mellowness
of the malt. After the malt is sufficiently heated, throw it abroad to cool, and
turn it over again about 6 or 8 hours after, and then dry it on the kiln. Where,
after one fire, which must serve for 24 hours, give it another more slow, and
if need be, a third. For if the malt be not thoroughly dried it cannot be well

VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 471

ground, neither will it dissolve well in the brewing, and the ale it makes will be
red, bitter, and will not keep.

The best fuel is peat. The next, charcoal, made of pit-coal or cinders.
Heath, broom, or furzes, are bad. If there be not enough of one kind, bum
the best first, for that gives the strongest impression as to the taste.

AvTjJ'taT^jfri, Sive Animadversiones in Malachite Thrustoni, M. D. Diatribam de
Respirationis Usu primario. Auctore Georgia Entio,* Eg. Aur. M.D. et Col.
Land. Soc. 1679. N° 142, p. IO72.

In this book, besides the anatomical observations, several opinions are pro-
posed and defended with the known elegancy and learning of the author.

It seems probable, says our author, that the finer part of the alimentary juice
is transmitted from the stomach and guts, by the mediation of small concave
fibres thereto annexed, to the several parts for their nourishment. That the
same alimentary juice is that which, in the use of vomitories and cathartics, is
by the same concave fibres disgorged into the stomach and guts, and not by
lacteal veins, or the arteries. That the water or serum, which is extravasated in
hydropic persons, issues not from the sanguiferous vessels ; but that it is the
nutritious juice itself, which either by an ulcer in some mesenteric gland, which
is not unusual, or an aperture in some lymphaeduct, oozes into the cavity of
the abdomen. That the febrific matter in intermittents is not lodged originally
in the blood. That the pituita, supposed by Dr. Glisson and others to be spued
out of the arteries into the coats of the stomach, is this very nutritious juice,
tending to other parts of the body, but upon the death of the animal, by cold
and slower motion condensed, and there arrested in its way. That after the
same manner milk is also transferred to the breasts. That neither in abscesses,
nor in any other case, it is the extravasated blood that suppurates, but only the
nutritious or alimentary juice. That accordingly in the small pox, the purulent
matter is not derived or bred out of the blood, but out of the aforesaid juice.
So that if a woman with child has the small pox, the child is found to have
them too, though not one drop of the mother's blood passes into the child.

* This was one of the most accomplished physicians of the I7th centuiy. He was bom at Sandi.
wich in Kent, in l604; and after prosecuting his studies at Cambridge, he went to Padua, where he
took his medical degree. On his return from his travels he settled in London; became a member of
the Royal Society, and was elected president of the College of Physicians. The honour of knight-
hood was conferred upon him by Charles II. He died at an advanced age in 1689. Sir George Ent was
one of the most strenuous defenders of the Harveian circulation of the blood, as may be seen by
consulting his Apologia pro Circulatione Sanguinis, qua respondetur ^milio Parisano 1641, and af-
terwards republished, l685, with considerable additions. The abovementioned tract, entitled Anti-
diatriba, and his Apologia were reprinted at Ley den in 16B7, under the title of Entii Opera Physico-
medica.

472 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1676.

That the membranes and nerves suck in their nourishment from the glands of
the mouth and throat, while we chew our meat. That after it is concocted in
the stomach, part of it is filtrated and transferred by the oesophagus or gullet
to the brain. From whence it is also derived to the nerves and membranes,
especially the membrana carnosa originated of the pia mater. That the colli-
quamentum, which first appears in a setting egg, is the ground work or begin-
ning of the brain. That the blood serves not to nourish the body, but only to
foment it, as it were, or keep it warm. That generation is opus ideale, and
the semen not to be taken for an extract from the several parts. For viviparous
animals have a placenta, to which there is nothing analogous in either parent.
That the pulse is rather the vibration, by a continuation of the motion from the
heart, than the intumescence of the artery. That urine is not derived to the
reins by the emulgent arteries, but by the nerves. That what are called the
lungs of a frog are only wind-bladders, analogous not to lungs, which in a frog
are no where found, but to that part, which in fishes is commonly called the
swim. That the primary use of respiration, is not to carry off fuliginous steams
from the blood, but for the ventilation of the vital flame in the heart or blood,
and supplying it with proper fuel. That it is a vulgar error, that the action of
exspiration is performed more slowly than of inspiration. That in the tip of an
Indian naked dog's ear, there are no muscles found, although he command it
into various and nimble motions. That the only use of the diaphragm, is to
facilitate respiration by guarding the heart and lungs, that the lower viscera do
not throng in upon them. That respiration is not needful to the motion or cir-
culation of the blood. That although heretofore our author thought the air in
inspiration to be mixed with the blood ; yet he says, that after several experi-
ments made, he could not by any good argument evince the same.

He has made the experiment, that whey tinged with saffron, being injected
into the pulmonary artery, immediately runs into the left ventricle of the heart,
without the assistance of inspiration. Neither does any blood at the same time
break forth into the lungs. He supposes, that animal motions are not made
by the influence of the animal spirits. But that in each part is seated a private
sense, which is under the command of the soul. And that therefore there are
no animal spirits, but those in the blood, called by the name of the calor na-
tivus. That the suspension or intermission of inspiration for a certain time
does not alter the pulse.*

* It is scarcely necessary to remark that this treatise of Dr. Ent's abounds in false physiology.
END OP VOLUME TWELFTH OF THE ORIGINAL.

ANNO 168 1.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 47B

PHILOSOPHICAL COLLECTIONS.*

Containing an account of such Physical, Anatomical, Chemical, Mechanical,
Astronomical, Optical, or other Mathematical and Philosophical Experiments
and Observations as have lately come to the publisher's hands. As also an
account of some books of this kind.

A Letter of Mr. Leuwenhoeck to Dr. G.-|- containing an Account of his Ohser^
vatiom lately made of vast Numbers of Animals in Semine Animalium. Pliilos.
Collect. N*" 1, p. 3.

Viewing the melt of a live codfish, I found the juices which ran from it full
of small live animals, incessantly moving to and fro. I have also viewed the
melt of pikes or jacks, and found an incredible number of small animals; and
I judge that there were at least 10,000 of these creatures in the size of a small
sand. These were smaller than those I observed in beasts, but their tails longer
and thinner. I viewed also the matter in the vasa deferentia of a male hare 4
days after it was killed, and found it full of these small tadpoles swimming in a
clear liquor, but they were without motion : the same I found also in the tes-
ticle. I examined also the matter in the vasa deferentia of birds, such as
cocks and turkey cocks, and found it full of oblong bodies, larger in the mid-
dle than at each end, which I conceived to be animals. I viewed also the tes-
ticle of a dog taken out of the second skin, and discovered a vast number of
small creatures. The semen of a cock about a year old, which had been kept
alone in a coop for 5 days, I found full of those animals, at least 50,000 in the

* These Philosophical Collections, seven in number, were published by Mr. Rob. Hooke, while
one of the secretaries to the Royal Society, the occasion of which was this : after the death of Mr.
Oldenburg, who had compiled the Philosophical Transactions from the beginning to N° 136, inclu-
sive, Mr. Hooke was elected one of the .secretaries Nov. 30, \677y and Dr. Grew at the same time
the otlier secretary. In consequence. Dr. Grew continued the publishing the Philosophical Transac-
tions in six additional numbers, ending with N°142} after which, the publication was discontinued
for four years, when they were recommenced in l6S3 by Dr. Plot, who continued them from N*'
143 to N° 166, inclusive. During the interval, however, Mr. Hooke, thinking to continue the work*
or begin another like it, published these Numbers exactly in a similar manner and fonn, but changed
the name from Transactions to Collections. These numbers of Mr, Hooke's then having always been
considered, as it were, a part of the general work, and having been as such inserted in former abridge-
ments, it has been thought fit to include them also in the present abridgement j and they are inserted
here between N° 142 and N° 143, being their proper place in respect of the order of time of publica-
tion } distinguishing each paper in these seven numbers by printing in the titles the words. Philoso-
phical Collections.

\ Probably Dr. Grew.

VOL. II. 3 P

474 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. rANNOl68].

size of a sand. Those were like river eels, which wriggled very much; these
closing together would make a cloud, and separating again make it seem to dis-
perse. I found them also in the vas deferens, in the epididymis, and in the vas
praeparans. By these observations you may judge that the testicle is made on
purpose for the production of these animals, and to keep them till sent off.
How vast and almost incredible the number of these creatures is, you may
somewhat the better conceive by the calculation which I have hereunto annexed.
I have formerly said that in a quantity of the juice of the melt of a male cod-
fish, of the size of a small sand, there are contained more than 10,000 small
living creatures with long tails; and considering how many such quantities, viz.
of the size of a sand, might be contained in the whole melt, I was of opinion,
that the melt of one single codfish contained more living animals than there
were living men at one time upon the face of the earth. That which induced
me to be of this belief, was this following calculation. I conceive that 100
sands in length will make an inch, therefore in a cubic inch there will be
3,000,000 of such sands. And I have found the melt of a codfish to be about
the quantity of 15 cubic inches, it must therefore contain 15,000,000 of quan-
tities as large as a sand, now if there be 10,000 animals in each of those quan-
tities, as I have computed there will be in the whole 1 50,000,000,000. To
reckon now the number of men which may be on the face of the earth at once
by guess. There are in a great circle, or in the compass of the earth 5,400
Dutch miles, thence I collect there must be 9,276,2J8 square Dutch miles for
the earth's superficies. It is said ^ of the superficies of the earth are water,
and -^ only is land; i- therefore of the last number is 3,092,072, which is
the number of square miles of dry land on the surface of the earth : I suppose
^ of this uninhabitable, and the other -^ only inhabited, which 4 contain
2,061, 382 square miles. According to the computation of N. N. the number
of people in Holland and West Friezland may be about 1,000,000. And if
all the rest of the habitable parts of the world were as populous as these, there
would be 13,385,000,000 of men at once on the face of the whole earth; but
in the melt of the codfish I have computed that there are 1 50,000,000,000 of
animals ; the number of these therefore will exceed the number of men more
than ten times.*

On Firy Damps in Mines. By Mr. J. Beaumont. Philos. Collect. N° 1, p. 6.
About two miles on the south-east of Stony Easton, at a place near Mendip-

* Tliis very computation ought to have made the author aware of the extreme improbability of
his opinion respecting the share which he ascribed to these his animalcula in the work of generation.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 475

Hills, begins a running of coal, consisting of several veins, which extends it-
self in length towards the east about 4 miles : there is much working in this
running, and fire-damps continually happen there : so that many men of late
years have been there killed, many others maimed and burnt ; some have been
blown up at the works mouth, the turn -beam which hangs over the shaft has
been thrown off its frame by the force of it, and those other efl?ects whereof you
had an account from other places are generally found. The middle and more
easterly parts of this running are so very subject to these fire-damps, that
scarcely a pit fails of them ; notwithstanding which, our colliers still pursue
their work : but to prevent mischief, they keep their air very quick, and use
no candles in their works but of a single wick, and those of 6o or 70 to the
pound, which nevertheless give as great a light there, as others of 10 or 12
to the pound in other places, and they always place them behind them, and
never present them to the breast of the work.

When any are burned, the usual method they observe in their cure is this :
they presently betake themselves to a good fire, and sending for some cows hot
milk, they first bathe the burned places with that ; when they have done this a
while, they make use of an ointment proper for hnrns.*

On the great Over-Jiowing of some Rivers in Gascony. Philos. Collect.

N° 1, p. 9.

In the beginning of the month of July 1678, after some gentle rainy days,
which had not swelled the waters of the Garonne more than usual, in one night
this river swelled so much, that all the bridges and mills above Tolouse were
carried away by it. In the plains below this town, the inhabitants who had
built in places, which by long experience they had found safe enough from any
former inundations, were surprized by this; some were drowned, together with
their cattle ; others only saved themselves by climbing into trees, and getting to
the tops of houses; and some others, who were looking after their cattle in the
field, warned by the noise which this horrible and furious torrent of water made,
rolling towards them like a sea, could not escape, but were overtaken, though
they fled with much precipitation : this however did not last many hours with
this violence.

♦ In slight and paitial burns happening in this or other ways, cold water, applied before the skin
becomes blistered, produces an immediate good effect j but in the more violent and extensive injuries
of this kind, it has been foimd that a contrary method is proper, and that ulceration, deep sloughs,
and mortification are best prevented by tlie application of spirit of wine, oil of turpentine, and other
Stimulants. The common oily applications are improper.

3 pa

476 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

At the same time exactly, the two rivers only of Adour and Gaue, which fall
from the Pyrenean hills, as well as the Garonne, and some other little rivers of
Gascony, which have their source in the plain, overflowed after the same man-
ner, and caused the same devastations.

The inhabitants of the Lower-Pyrenees observed, that the water flowed
with violence from the entrails of the mountains, about which there were
opened several channels, which, forming so many furious torrents, tore up the
trees, the earth, and great rocks in such narrow places where they found not a
passage large enough. The water also which spouted from all the sides of the
mountain in innumerable jets, which lasted all the time of the greatest over-
flowing, had the taste of minerals. — In some of these passages, the waters were
stinking, as when one stirs the mud at the bottom of mineral water, so that
the cattle refused to drink of it, which was more particularly taken notice of at
Lomber, where the horses were 8 hours thirsty before they would endure to
drink it. So that M. Martell believes he had found out the true cause of this
overflowing to be nothing else but the subterraneous waters : for if the heavens
have not supplied this prodigious quantity of waters, neither by the rain, nor
the melting of the snow ; it cannot oome elsewhere than from the bowels of the
earth, from whence passing through divers channels, it had contracted and
carried along with it that stinking and pungent quality.

j4n Account of the Sieur Berniers Way of Flying. Philos. Collect.

N° 1, p. 14.

The art of flying has been attempted by several persons, in all ages. Not to
notice more remote and fabulous accounts, we may observe that it was believed
possible by our countryman Friar Bacon, who assures us that he himself knew
how to make an engine, in which a man sitting might be able to carry himself
through the air like a bird : and affirms, that there was then another person
who had actually tried it with good success. And it has been credibly reported
that about the year l640, one Mr. Gascoyn tried it with good effect; though
he since dying, the thing also died with him. — The following method it is said
was practised in France, between 1670 and 168O, and thus described.

The Sieur Besnier, a smith of Sable in the county of Maine, had invented an
engine for flying, consisting of 4 wings, to be moved by the strength of the
arms and legs of the man that flies.

It consists of 1 poles or rods, which have at each end of them an oblong
chassie or wing of tafi^ety, which folds from above downwards, as the frame of
a folding window. In fig, 1, pi. 14, A represents the right wing before, B the
left wing behind, C the left wing before, and D the right wing behind ; E is 9

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. AT]

small string tied from the wing B to the left foot, by which it Is moved down-
wards, at the san>e time that the wing A is moved downwards by the right hand.
F is a string fastened to the right leg, by which the right wing D behind is
made to descend at the same time that the left hand draws down C the left
wing before. When the person designs to fly, he fits these poles upon each
shoulder, so that 2 of the chassies may be before him, and the other 2, behind
him. Those chassies or wings which are before him, are moved or struck
downwards by the strength of his arms and hands, by which the hinder chassies
are lifted up, and those hinder wings are pulled or struck downwards by the
legs, which pull them down by the 2 strings which are fastened both to the
legs and hinder wings. — The manner and order of moving these wings is thus :
when the right hand strikes down the right wing before, the left leg by means
of the string E pulls downward the left wing behind B ; then immediately after,
the left hand moves or strikes downwards the left wing before C ; and at the
same time, the right foot by the string E, moves or pulls down the right wing
behind D, and so successively, and alternately, the diagonally opposite wings
always moving downwards, or striking the air together.

Two things seem to be wanting to this machine. First, to find out a sub-
stance that shall be exceedingly light, and yet of great extension, which being
applied to any part of the body, it shall be able to suspend the weight of the
man in the air : the second is the fitting and adjusting of a tail, because this
will help both to support, and also to steer or guide the flier. But from divers
experiments that have been made by several persons without effect, it is con-
ceived that these motions and directions to the tail cannot be given without
much difficulty.

But he pretends not nevertheless to be able to raise himself from the earth by
this his machine, nor to sustain himself any long time in the air, by reason of
the want of strength and quickness in his arms and legs, which is necessary to
move these kind of wings frequently and efficaciously enough ; but yet he is
confident that from a place pretty high elevated into the air, he shall be able to
pass over a river of a considerable breadth, having already done as much from
several heights, and at several distances. — He began his trials first by springing
out himself from a stool, then from the top of a table, then from a pretty hi^h
window, then from a window in a second story, and at last from a garret, from
whence he flew over the houses of the neighbours; practising thus with it by
little and little, till he had brought it to the present perfection.

478 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

Of a Flying Ship* By Fr. Lana, Philos. Collect. N°l, p. is.

But no one yet thought it possible to make a ship which should pass through
the air, as if it were sustained by the water, because they have judged it im-
possible to make an engine which should be lighter than the air, which is,
nevertheless, necessary to be done in order to produce this effect. But I hope
at length I have fallen on a way of making such an engine as shall not only_, by
its being lighter than the air raise itself in the air, but together with itself buoy
up and carry into the air men, or any other w^eight ; which I confirm both by
certain experiments, and by geometrical demonstration.

I suppose first, that the air has weight, because of the vapours and exhala-
tions, which are raised from and incompass our terraqueous globe to the height
of many miles. And the proof of it may be made by evacuating, if not all, yet
a great part of the air out of a glass-vessel, which having been first weighed,
and after the extracting of the air weighed again, will be found notably lessened
in weight. Now how much the weight of the air is, I have found in this man-
ner : I took a large glass vessel, the neck of which could be shut and opened
by a stop-cock ; and being open I heated it at the fire, so that the air in it be-
ing rarefied, issued out of it in great part : then I suddenly shut it, so that the
air could not re-enter, and weighed it : which done, I sunk the neck under
water, the body of the glass remaining all above the water; avid opening it, the
water ascended into the glass, and filled the greater part of it. Then I opened
it again, and let out the water, which I weighed, and mea5>iired the bulk and
quantity thereof. Whence I inferred, that so much air had issued out of the
glass, as there was water that had entered to fill the part left by the air. I
again weighed the vessel, first well wiped dry, and I found that it weighed an
ounce more whilst it was full of air, than it did when the greater part of it was
evacuated. So that that surplus of weight was a quantity of air, equal in bulk
to the water that had entered into the place of it. Now that water weighed
640 ounces : whence I conclude, that the weight of the air, compared with
that of the water, is, as one to 640, that is, if the water which fills a vessel
weighs 640 ounces, the air filling the same vessel weighs one ounce.-j^ I sup-
pose, secondly, that a cubic foot of water weighs 80 pounds, or 960 ounces ;
for I found that that water which weighed 640 ounces, was little less than -f- of

* This account is extracted and abridged from the 6th chapter of Fr. Lana's book called
Prodromo.

t This method of finding the relative weight of air, in respect of that of water, is ingenious
enough ; though the experiment here described has not been accurately performed, since instead of
640 times, it is now well known that water is 830 times heavier than air.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. AfQ

a cubic foot ; whence it follows, that if -^ of a foot of air weighs an ounce, a
whole foot will weigh 1-^ ounce. — I suppose, thirdly, that any great vessel may
be altogether evacuated of air, or at least of the greatest part of the air, in the
following manner. Let any great glass-vessel be taken, that is round and has
a neck, and let to the neck be fastened a brass or tin tube, the longer the surer
the effect will be. Let there be near the said vessel a stop-cock, so closing the
glass that no air can enter. Fill the whole glass, and the whole pipe full of
water; then shutting the latter in the extreme part, let the vessel be inverted,
so that it stand on its upper part, and let the extreme part of the tube be
immersed in water ; and whilst it is immersed in the water, let it be opened,
that the water may issue out of the vessel ; which will all go out of it, except
part in the tube, and the remaining space above will be empty, there being no
way for the air to enter : then shut the neck of the vessel with the stop-cock,
and the vessel will be empty. — I suppose, fourthly > it proved that the superficies
of spheres increase in a duplicate proportion to their diameters, and their solidity
in a triplicate. — I suppose, fifthly, that where one body is lighter in specie than
another, the lighter ascends in the other that is heavier, if the heavier be a
liquid body ; as a ball of ordinary wood on water, because it is lighter in specie
than water ; so also a ball of glass full of air will swim at the top of water, be-
cause though glass be heavier than water, yet taking the whole compound of
the ball, glass and air together, it is lighter than that, which is only a body
of water.

These things being supposed, it follows, that if we could make a vessel of
glass or other matter, that might weigh less than the air that is in it, and
should draw out all its air, this vessel would be lighter in specie than air itself,
so that it would swim on the top of the air, and ascend on high. — Let the
capacity of the vessel be increased more and more, and we shall arrive to such a
size, that although it be made of a dense and heavy matter, yet the weight of
the air it may contain shall exceed the weight of the matter that makes up the
surface of that vessel. — Let us see then of what determinate size a brass vessel
may be made; and let us suppose the thinness of the brass to be such, that a
plate of it a foot broad and long may weigh 3 ounces; which is not difficult to
make. Let us make of such thin plate a round vessel of the diameter of 14
feet: then such a vessel will weigh less than the air in it. So that the air being
exhausted out of it, and the bare vessel remaining lighter than an equal bulk of
air, must needs of itself mount up into the air. For the surface of the globe
will be 6l6 square feet of brass-plate, each of which we have supposed to weigh
3 ounces, and the whole 1848 ounces, or 154 pounds. But the capacity of the
vessel will be 1437t ^^et; and the weight of the whole air contained in that

480 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1681.

vessel will be 2155-1- ounces, or 179 pounds and 7f ounces : so that by drawing
out that air, the vessel is 25 pounds and 7f ounces lighter than air ; so that
that air being evacuated, the vessel will not only ascend into the air, but also
carry with it on high a weight of 25 pounds and 7^ ounces. And thus by in-
creasing the bulk of the vessel, without increasing the thickness of the brass
plates, he supposes a kind of ship or other vessel may be made to rise up in the
air, and carry men up with it.*

^71 Occultation of Jupiter by the Moon, June 6, Neiv Style, in the Morning,
Observed at Dantzic, by M. Hevelius, Translated from the Latin. Philos.
Collect. N° 1, p. 29.

Although I have watched and observed the heavens for 50 years past, yet I
have only once in all that time seen Jupiter covered by the moon, which was in
the year 1646, Dec. 24, New Style, in the evening, when the sun was under
the horizon. So that I very much congratulate myself that I could make this
observation, not only with a very clear sky, but also according to my wish, in
the presence of my very welcome guest, the learned and celebrated Mr.
Edmund Halley.-j-

Jupiter entered behind the moon at mount Audus ; and, as far as could be
expected from its exit, it passed through the Loca Paludosa of the island Car-
cinna, over mount Actua, through the island Besbica, through Byzanticum,
the island ApoUonia, and the upper part of Palus Maeotis ; so that he went a
little above the moon's centre; the moon having then some south latitude.
Then, which is very uncommon, we measured, I think very accurately, the ap-
parent diameter of Jupiter in this observation. I remember that formerly I have
several times measured that diameter by means of the lunar spots, and found

* Father Lana next proceeds to explain and direct the methods of making the machine, of ex-
hausting it, and obviating some difficulties which he conceives may occur in that process, and in the
managing of it, when floating in tlie air, by endeavouring to give it any particular direction ; also to
cause it to rise higher, he directs to throw out ballast or weights, and in order to descend lower when
needful, open a stop-cock to let out more air, &c. much in the manner as practised by the aeronauts
of the present day. And although the business could not be accomplished in his way of managing it,
nor the sides of so large and thin a vessel be sustained from crushing by the pressure of the atmos-
phere, for want of the knowledge of another kind of air, as elastic as the atmosphere, and yet many
times lighter, to fill the globe with, thereby rendering it at once both light and strong : yet the
paper is very ingenious and curious, and probably may have furnished hints to the more modem philo-
sophers to bring to perfection, in our time, what Father Lana and others had only surmised and con-
ceived as possible.

t Who had been sent to him to settle a dispute with Mr. Hook, concerning the difference in
observing, between plain and telescopic sights.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 481

that it came to about SS'"; but now the same diameter came out much less: for,
the whole duration of this occultation being known, viz. SS'" 10% and at the
same time the diameter of the moon being 32' 40''; it presently becomes known,
from that moment of time when the first limb of Jupiter touched that of the
moon, and when again his body was just all hid, which took place in the space
of 55', that the diameter of Jupiter comes out 30'^ 53"'.

The principal observations were the following, the times of the pendulum
clock being corrected by observed altitudes : — The moon rose at 1*^ 54™ 25';
the sun rose at 3*^ 28*" 25'; Jupiter touched the eastern limb of the moon at 4**
IS'" 5'; the planet was wholly covered at 4*^ ig*" o* ; a considerable part of Ju-
piter was emerged at 5^ 16"^ 25'j and the whole of the planet was emerged at

The Observation of the Eclipse of Jupiter and his Satellites by the Moon, the 5th
^ June 1679, ^' S' By M. Cassini. Philos. Collect. N° 1, p. 33.

Having found by calculation, that the moon ought to eclipse the planet Ju-
piter the 5th of June this year 1679 ; I was ready with a 20-foot telescope to
observe after the rising of the moon, with which I discovered 3 satellites : the
1st was distant westward of the limb of Jupiter a little less than a diameter ;
the 2d was distant on the east side a little more than a diameter; the 3d was
more eastward than the 2d, by somewhat less than a diameter of Jupiter; and
the 4th being less than the other, which according to calculation, should have
been near its greatest digression eastward, appeared not by reason of the cre-
pusculum.

At 3^ 0™ 11% the first satellite was hid by the east limb of the moon. At
3h 2^ o-i^^ the east side of the moon touched the west side of Jupiter: then I
took the height of Jupiter, which was 8° l', at 3*^ 2"^ 5 1 '. At 3^ 2"» 57' Jupiter
was entirely hid by the moon. He entered at equal distance from the two spots
Grimaldi and Aristarchus ; the last of which was in the section of the moon,
which distinguished the light from the dark part. At 3^ 5™ 1% the 2d satellite
was hid by the east side of the moon. At 3^ b^ 48' the 3d satellite was hid, &c.

Then followed a multitude of small clouds of the colour of shining fire,
which were formed near the horizon. Whilst we were looking at these, without
losing sight of the moon, we perceived by the eye that Jupiter was parted from
the obscure side of the moon at 3^ 56'".

M. De la Hire, who observed near the gate of Montmartre, 2 minutes after ^
the parting, took the height of Jupiter, and found it 17° 17'« We afterwards
made divers observations for determining the parallax and the diameter of the

VOL. II. 3 Q

p'

r

m

t

(U

a

faC

CO

s

dj

482 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

moon, and for adjusting the time, having observed Jupiter till 6^' 3"^ in the morn,
at the height of 36°, as well with a telescope of 20 feet as with one of 3, which
is remarkable, because Jupiter is wont to disappear in the crepuscule some minutes
after sun-rising.

Twelve Problems in compound Interest and Annuities, resolved by Adam Martin-
dale, Philos. Collect. N*' 1, p. 34.

Twelve problems in compound interest and annuities, expressed in symbols,
to be resolved by logarithms, and distinguished into three ranks, whose symbols
are thus to be understood :

Principal 1

Rate, viz. 1 1. with its rate j-Common to all the 3 ranks.

Time J

Amount or aggregate "^ C ^ 7

Sum of principal and arrearages \ proper to •< ^ r Rank.

Difference of principal and worth J t 3 3

Their capitals stand for the logarithms of the number signified by the small
letters.

D signifies data, or given ; Q quaestitum, Prob. problem. Res. resolution.
The first rank touching compound interest for a single sum of money.

1 prob. D. p, r, t. Q. a? Res. R^ X P = A.

2 prob. D. a, r, t. Q. p ? Res. A — R* = P.

3 prob. D. p, a, t, Q. r ? Res. — - — = R.

4 prob. D. p, a, r. Q. t. Res. ^~~^ = t.

R

The second Rank, concerning Annuities in Arrear at Compound Interest, grounded

upon these tivo Axioms.

1 . The annuity and rate of interest being given, the principal correspondent
to the annuity is in effect given also, being easily found out by the Rule of
Three, thus;

As the Interest of any principal, ex. gr. of 1, 10, 100, &c. is to that prin-
cipal : : so the annuity or pension, to its principal.

2. The sum of the principal and the arrearage of all the payments being found,
the arrearages alone may be obtained, by subtracting the principal from that
sum.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 483

The Problems are these tliat follow,

1 prob. D. p, r, t. Q. j? Res. R^ X p = S.

2 prob. D. s, r, t. Q.p} Res. S — R^ = P.

3 prob. D. j&, s, t. Q. r ? Res. -~^ = R.

4 prob. D. /), 5, r. Q. f ? Res. tziZ = t.

R

The third rank concerning annuities anticipated, or bought for a sum in hand,
or equivalent thereto, at compound interest discounted, founded on the former
of the two axioms above mentioned, and this that follows:

If the difference and worth be once found, the worth is easily obtained, by
subtracting that difference out of the principal, which is ever greater, being the
worth of the annuity at that rate for ever.

1 prob. D. j&, r, t. Q. d} Res. P — R* = D.

2 prob. D. d, r, t. Q.p} Res. D X R^ = p.

3 prob. D. p, d, L Q. r ? Res. ^^ = R.

p.! jy

4 prob. D. pi d,u Q. t} Res. ^ == t.

An Account of Books. Philos. Collect, N° 1, p. 38.

Marcelli Malpighii Phil, et Med. Bononiensis, e Societate Regia Anatomes Plan-

tarum. Pars Altera. Lond. 1679.
This ingenious author having, in the first part of his anatomy of plants, given
us the description of the several parts a plant consists of, together with their
uses, and the method and order of vegetative motion ; in this second part, he
explains the causes and descriptions of the usual accessaries and accidents of
vegetables : as, the method of growing, from the first motion of the seed, and
what change it daily undergoes, &c. Nexf he shows, that galls, or preternatural
tumors of plants, are receptacles or nurseries of the eggs of insects. Then he
treats of the excrescences and other morbid tumors from some fault of the plant
itself. Then of the hairs or thorns which plants are armed with. And in like
manner of the tendrils, or the hands wherewith weak plants lay hold upon some
firmer support ; and with no less exactness of the plants that grow upon others.
Of roots, and in what manner buds are shot out : and herein of bulbous plants
that are but annual, and yet renew and propagate from themselves without the
mediation of seeds. And all these things are so illustrated by figures well graven
after the author's own exact delineations, that there is hardly any room left for
addition. 3 a 2

484 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

Memoires pour servir a V Histoire des Plantes dresses par M. Dodart* de V Aca-
demie des Sciences, Docteur en Medicine de la Faculty de Paris. Id Edition
ct Par. 1679. Philos. Collect. N° 1, p. SQ.

This book contains the designs of the Royal Academy of France for perfect-
ing the knowledge of vegetables, and that design likewise in some manner
pursued. It consists of five chapters; in the first of which they tell us, how
they intend to describe plants.

In the 2d chap, we learn, that the figures will be as large as one leaf of the
noble French paper will admit. If the plant be too large, it will be represented
in pieces, all, or some at least, of the natural size, with their seeds, flowers,
&c. and some parts and small plants as they appear in the microscope. The 3d
chap, promises a trial of several means to ascertain the nature of soils, the causes
of their particular disposition to certain plants, &c. &c. The 4th chap, treats
of the virtues of plants, and in particular of their analysis, or the products ob-
tained from them by subjecting them to the action of fire; showing that by this
method they yield the following results : 1 . Acid spirits. 2. Essential oils.
3, Sulphureous spirit. 4. Simple waters. 5. Waters with an acidity mixed,

• Denis Dodart was born at Paris in l634. After going through the usual preliminary studies in
that university, he determined to embrace the medical profession, to which he accordingly applied
with extraordinary assiduity; and at length became physician to the King, as well as to the Dowager
Princess of Conti, and the young Prince of Conti. Although the history of plants occupied a large
portion of his time, he nevertheless engaged in a laborious set of experiments (conducted after the
manner and example of Sanctorius) on insensible perspiration ; and moreover made many practical
observations on venesection, on diet, &c. ; on all which subjects some manuscripts were found after
his death, which, however, have never yet been published. It should also be mentioned, that he
once tliought of writing histories of medicine and music j in the last of which he was well skilled, both
theoretically and practically. He died in 1707, aged 7^ ; leaving a son whom he had brought up in
his own profession ; and who, like the father, had the honour of being appointed physician to the King.

In private life M. Dodart was esteemed for his mild but dignified demeanour, for his unreserved and
instructive conversation, for his benevolent and charitable disposition, for the purity of his moral
principles, and for his sincere belief in the christian religion.

Notwithstanding his engagements at Court, and among the higher orders of society, he never
neglected the poor. He was at the same time the physician and companion of the great, and the
friend and comforter of the needy. It was his felicity (as Fontenelle has remarked) to receive the
stroke of death while he was occupied in performing charitable actions, being seized with a fever
(which terminated fatally in a few days) , in consequence of the fatigue he underwent and a cold he
caught in visiting and prescribing for the indigent sick. It is by such men that the great purposes of
the medical profession are fulfilled, and that its dignity and utility are rendered conspicuous. Such
characters, whether they belong to our own country or to foreign nations, can never be contemplated
without pleasure^ nor mentioned without praise.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 485

which though not tastable, is yet found and distinguished by other means.
6. Waters with sulphur in Hke manner insensible, and to be found by other
scrutinies. 7* Acid spirits. 8. Mixed spirits of acid and sulphur. 9. Urinous
spirits. 10. Acid urinous spirits. 11. Volatile salts. 12. Black burnt oils.
13. Salts fixed, saline or lixiviate. 14 Earth.*

These are supposed alterations by fire, rather than separations. But for dis-
tinguishing, several ways have been thought of, as, the manner of process, as-
certaining the degrees of heat by a thermometer, &c. That culinarv heat, and
the heat of the stomach may make the same alterations and separations.

For rectifying these substances, little is used. The particulars of the process
are remarked and registered, as the time, degrees of fire, sensible qualities of
the parts, &c. And these according to their proportionable quantities and de-
grees, and that with great care, exactness, and judgment, collected from dif-
ferent ways of examination: taking an account of their weight, gravity, (of
which many instances are given). Insensible qualities, found by divers mixtures;
as of acids, sulphurs, &c. with turnsole. Volatile spirits, &c. make solution of
sublimate white. Sea-salt whitens solution of sacharum saturni. Mixed spirits
redden solution of vitriol, &c.

Next the trying of these extracts in vacuo is propounded to find their air. And
several observations of the differences of volatile and fixed salts related. Also
ways are shown how to find the degrees of composition of these extracts:
particular ways for particular plants. Lastly, the way of analysing juices is
mentioned ; and the advantages of this process.

In the fifth and last chapter is stated the method which the Royal Academy
intend to take for completing and publishing the History of Plants.

Osservationi intomo alle Torpedini fatte da Stephano Lorenzini Fiorentino, In
Firenze, 1678. Philos. Collect. N° 1, p. 42.

In the present treatise, the author gives a description of the torpedo. No-
ticing, 1. That this fish is of the flat cartilaginous kind;-}- that there are two

* Great expectations were once entertained by the French academicians, as to the possibility of
ascertaining the virtues of plants by this mode of decomposition ; and an extensive set of experiments
was accordingly instituted. But after much time and expence, it was found that this object was not
f 'thus attainable. In fact, vegetables which produce the most opposite effects upon the human body,
yield, when subjected to destiiictive analysis by fire, similar results. These experiments however
were by no means useless in a chemical point of view.

f It belongs to the Linnaean genus Raja, and much light has within these few years been thrown
upon the structure and use of some of its parts, by the late Mr. John Hunter. See Phil. Trans,
vol. 63.

486 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l68l.

kinds, a greater and a less ; some of the one weighing 25 lbs. and of the other
6 ozs. 2. That in the skin there are several pores, which are the ends of so
many pipes or ducts that bring slime to make the skin slippery, and which are
accompanied with so many others which go from the skin to the spina dorsi, the
rise of the former being in the glands, between the eyes and the edge of the
fish, which swim in a liquor in a cavity made by appendices of the cranium,
which glands separate this slime from the blood. And the latter or smaller
pipes carry back the superfluous. 3. That the brain touches the pia mater in
the base only, being separated elsewhere by water in which the brain swims.
4. That the heart has but one auricle, and that it will move 8, Q, or 10
hours after it is separated from the body. 5. It has an ovarium near the
liver, and a double oviduct and womb (for it is viviparous) wherein the eggs
swim, till from a cicatricula a perfect foetus is formed. The conception,
during its formation, having no communication with the dam, by vessel, mem-
brane, or otherwise. And here he describes the genitals of other creatures,
and amongst them of a lobster and crab, wherein he says Dr. Willis has mis-
taken penultim for ultim. 6. That the chief wonder of this animal, and that
which gives it its name, is the benumbing faculty which is seated in the two se-
micircular or falcated muscles on each side of the thorax, which consist of fi-
bres, irregular, but as large as a goose-quill, and made up of bladders filled with
a kind of water; one end of these fibres being fixed to the skin of the belly,
and the other end to that of the back, on which may be plainly seen the ves-
tigia of the fibres ends. Now when the fish contracts those fibres, there issue
out corpuscles fitted to the pores of a man's skin, so as to enter upon immediate
contact, but not otherwise, and disturb the posture of the parts, and to cause
pain, as when one's elbow is hit or knocked; and this comes most by the fingers
ends, because there are ends of tendons. And this pain is more or less, as the
contraction of the fibres have immitted more or less. 7- The fish takes in
water through several holes near the stomach, and puts it out at the other end,
forcing it in the passage to scour the bronchia or lungs, which in creatures that
have a thick fuligo to be separated (as this) are convex, in others are concave.
8. He seems to deny a tongue to this as well as to most other fishes, that which
is called so being devoid of the papillary instrument of taste, which is the pri-
mary use of a tongue. Q. He observes that the stomach, guts, &c. are short,
large, and turn very little, and consist but of one sort of fibres, namely circu-
lar, whereas others have a pair of cross winding screws. The weak peristaltic
motion being made amends for by a copious dissolvent, which oozes out of
small teats on the inside of the stomach, and soon reduces fishes, which this
animal swallows alive of all sorts, to a liquor fit enough for the lacteals.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 487

An Account of Ohey-hoJe, and several other Subterraneous Grottos and Caverns
in Mendjp-hillsj Somersetshire, &c. By Mr. John Beaumont, Jun. Philos.
Collect. N° 2, p. 1 .

On the south side of Mendip-hills, within a mile of Wells, is a famous
grotto, known by the name of Okey-hole, much resorted to by travellers. The
entrance of it is in the declivity of those hills, which is there environed with
rocks, having near it a precipitous descent about 1 0 or \1 fathoms deep, at the
bottom of which there always issues from the rock a considerable current of
water. The naked rocks above the entrance show themselves for about 30 fa-
thoms in height, though the whole ascent of the hill above it is about a mile,
and is very steep.

At first entering this vault, you go upon a level; but advancing farther into
it, you find the way rocky and uneven, sometimes ascending and sometimes
descending. The roof in the highest part is about 8 fathoms from the floor,
and in some places it is so low that a man must stoop to pass through. Its
width is also various, in some parts it is about 5 or 6 fathoms, in others not
above 1 or 2; it extends itself in length about 200 yards.

At the farther part of this cavern there rises a good stream of water, large
enough to drive a mill, which passes all along one side of the cavern, and at
length slides down about 6 or 8 fathoms between the rocks, and then pressing
through the clefts of them, discharges itself into a valley. This river within
the cavern is well stored with eels, and has some trouts in it, which must of
necessity have been engendered there, and not come from without, there being
so great a fall near the entrance. In a dry summer I have seen a number of
frogs all along the cavern, to the farthest part of it, and other little animals in
some small cisterns of water there. Before arriving at the middle of this vault,
you find a bed of very fine sand, which is much used by artists to cast metals
in. On the roof, at certain places, hang multitudes of bats, as usual in all ca-
verns whose entrance is upon a level, or somewhat ascending or descending.

The next cavern of note lies about 5 miles from this, on the southwest part
of Mendip-hills, near a place called Chedder, famous for cheese; from this
place you may pass up a narrow valley about a mile in length, being bounded
with precipitous rocks on the east and west, some of a very considerable height.
To enter into this cavern, before you reach half way this valley, you must as-
cend about 15 fathoms on those rocks which bound it to the east. This ca-
vern is not of so large extent as the former, neither has it any thing peculiar in
it. These two caverns have no communication with the mines.

48& PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN0 1681.

It is generally observed, that wherever mines of lead-ore are, there caverns
of various kinds and situations are found. The most considerable in Mendip-
hills is a cavern in a hill called Lamb. First a perpendicular shaft descends
about 10 fathoms, then you come into a leading vault, which extends itself in
length about 40 fathoms ; it runs not on a level, but descending, so that when
you come to the end of it you are 23 fathoms deep by a perpendicular line ;
the floor of it is full of loose rocks : its roof is firmly vaulted with lime-stone
rocks, having flowers of all colours hanging from them, which present a most
beautiful object to the eye, being always kept moist by the distilling waters. In
some parts the roof is about 5 fathoms in height, in others so low that a man
has much ado to pass by creeping; the width is mostly about 3 fathoms. This
cavern crosses many veins of ore. About its middle, on the east side, lies a
narrow passage into another cavern, which runs between 40 and 50 fathoms in
length. At the end of the first cavern there opens another large one.

I have been in many other caverns upon Mendip-hills. The frequency of
caverns on those hills may be easily guessed at, by the frequency of swallow-
pits, which occur there in all parts, and are made by the falling in of the roofs
of caverns ; some of these pits being of a large extent, and very deep ; and
sometimes our miners, sinking in the bottom of these swallows^ have found
oaks 15 fathoms deep in the earth.

On the F^ariation of the Needle ; and of the Phosphorus of Dr. Kunkel. By
J. Chr. Sturmius, Philos. Collect. N" 2, p. 8.

After many trials repeated several days one after another, and with various
ways of examination, still in every one of them with the same success, he cer-
tainly found that the north end of the magnetic needle, which the former age
always reported to us to vary from the north, and to direct or point more to-
wards the east by several degrees, did now decline towards the west near 5 de-
grees. On the renewing of the Society of the Curiosi in Germany the third
time, I had occasion the last summer to make many experiments with the
pneumatic engine: among the rest, having prepared a large receiver of copper
of 2 feet diameter, made by joining two hemispheres together, so as that they
could at pleasure be separated again ; I made one trial not unpleasant : I sealed
lip a round glass hermetically, and covered it with a double bladder very care-
fully, and including it in the spherical receiver, I found that after about 200
exhaustions had been made, it broke all in pieces in the receiver with a very
great noise, by the elasticity of the air inclosed in the glass globe.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 48^

Concerning the noctiluca or phosphorus of Dr. Kunckel,* I suppose you may
before this have received some account, but whether you have heard of his pills
which he calls miraculous, I much doubt : I thought therefore it might not be
unacceptable to you to receive this following account of them. This chemist.
Dr. Kunckel, prepares out of the same condensed light, which by his skill he
knows how to extract out of any kind of terrestrial body whatever, as if it were
there naturally placed, certain pills about the size of peas, to which he ascribes
very strange comforting and medicinal virtues ; these being moistened a little,
and in the dark scraped with one's nail, or a knife, or the like, do yield a very
considerable light, with a smoke also ; but they afford a light yet much more
pleasant and strange, if about 8 or 10 of them be put into a glass of water, and
therewith shook in the dark ; for thereby all the water and the cavity of the
glass will seem perfectly filled with light, flashing by turns very briskly. Dr..
Kunckel has also reduced the same lucid matter into the form of larger stones,

• John Kunckel, one of the most celebrated chemists of the 17th century, was a native of HoU
stein, and was bom in l630. After being instructed in pharmacy, he turned his attention to metal-
lurgy, glass-making, and other branches of technical chemistry. Having seen a specimen of phos-
phorus that had been made by a German chemist named Brandt, he determined to prepare some
himself, though Brandt kept the process a secret. It was known, however, that the last mentioned
chemist had long been busied in making experiments on urine 5 accordingly Kunckel conjectured that
it was from this excretory fluid that the phosphorus was extracted. Though he repeatedly failed, he
still persevered, and after 4 years labour he succeeded in accomplishing his object. In his situation
as director of the glass works near Potsdam, he had excellent opportunities of trying experiments on
the coloration of glass, and accordingly brought the method of making ruby-glass to great perfection.
He manufactured large quantities of it, which he sold (as Lewis mentions in his Coramercium
Philosophico-technicum) for about 40 shillings an ounce. A chalice of this ruby-coloured glass
which he made for the Elector of Cologne, weighed not less than 24!bs, was a fiiU inch thick, and
of an uniform fine colour throughout. The principal tinging material which he employed for this
purpose appears to have been Cassius's precipitate of gold. He hints, however, that he used other
additions 5 that much depends on the degree and continuance of the fire j that a smoky flame often
ser\-ed to heighten tlie colour ; and tliat the process after all frequently failed. Kunckel's practical
knowledge in this and otlier chemical arts led him to be employed at different times in the ser\-ice of
the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, and of the King of Sweden j by which sovereign he was
ennobled, with the title Von Lowenstem. The exact time of his death is not recorded j but he was
known to be living when he was between 60 and 70 years of age. His observations on phosphorus;
on the art of making glass j on acid and urinous salts, &c. besides his work entitled Laboratorium
Chemicum, were written in German; but have been translated into Latin and other languages.

Among foreigners, Kunckel is entitled to the discovery (equally with Brandt) of preparing phos-
phorus from urine ; but from the papers deposited by Mr. Boyle with the secretaries of the Royal
Society and opened after his death, it would appear that this indefatigable experimenter, our country-
man, had found out the method of obtaining this curious product sometime before. This circum-
stance we shall barely mention here, postponing tlie further consideration of it until we come to that
part of the Transactions coataining^ Mr. Boyle's communication on this subject..

VOL. II. 3 I^

490 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I68J.

which being warmed by the hand, but especially if they be a little scraped or
rubbed on a paper or table, describe letters very legible in the dark.

Account of a Body, after being long buried, almost wholly converted into Hair,

Philos. Collect. N° 1, p. 10.

About 43 years since the body of a woman was buried in this place, (Norem-
berg), in a dry and yellow earth, as the earth for the most part is near this city.
The corps' lay the lowest of three in the same grave, there being two other
corps over it ; the ground, bones, and ashes of which being removed, this
coffin began to appear; through the clefts of which much hair was thrust out,
and had grown very plentifully, so that it is believed that the whole coffin may
for some time have been all covered with hair. The cover of this coffin being
removed, the whole corps appeared perfectly resembling a human shape, ex-
hibiting the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and all the other parts ; but from the
very crown of the head to the sole of the feet covered over with a very thick set
hair, long and much curled. Which strange sight much amazed the sexton
and his companions ; but after a little viewing of it, going to handle the upper
part of the head with his fingers, he found immediately all the shape of the
body to fall, and left nothing in his hand but a handful of hair, there being
neither skull nor any other bone left, unless it were a very small part of that
which they suspect to be the great toe of the right foot. This hair was some-
what rough at first, but afterwards it grew very much harder, and of a brown
red colour, of which the enclosed papers present you a sample.

This paper of hair was seen at a meeting of the Royal Society, and remains
in their repository at Gresham College, and it is found to be a stiff^ red^ some-
.what curled, but rotten hair.

Some Anatomical Observations on Hair found in several Parts of the Body; as
also Teeth, Bones, &c. with parallel Histories of the same observed by others.
Communicated by Edward Tyson, M. D. and F, R. S. Philos. Collect^
]S[°2, p. 11.

It is the opinion of the learned Honoratus Fabri (lib. 3, de Plantis) and
others, that hair, wool, feathers, nails, horns, teeth, &c. are but animal
vegetables or plants ; if so, we may be the less surprized at their growth on the
body, even after the decease of the animal, as in the foregoing and many other
instances. Petre Borelli (Hist, et Obs. Med. Cent. 1, Obs. 10,) thinks that as
plants they may be transplanted, and made to grow in a soil they did not at
first. What he relates concerning teeth being drawn and set again, I know to

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 401

be true, having tried it formerly in myself, and have heard of the like done by
others. As for hair, the outward surface of the body is the usual place where
it grows ; and of teeth, the mouth. But of late I have met with instances,
that even in the most inward parts of the body I have observed these vegetable
excresences. Dr. T. then adds a long account of such cases, part of his own
observing on dissections, and many instances extracted from the writings of
others ; from which it appears that hair, and other matters, have been found in
many unusual places ; as, on the tongue, on the heart and within it, in the
breasts and kidneys, besides other glandular and muscular parts of the body;
but that there is scarcely any internal part more subject to it than the ovaria or
testicles of females.

Recount of a Medicinal Experiment of Johannes Baptista u4lprunus, M.D,
Physician to the Empress Eleonora, and appointed to take Care of Persons
infected with the Sickness \_Plague~\ tried upon one so infected j and published Zy
himself at Pragu£y 168O. Philos. Collect. N° 2, p. 17.

No poison is greater than that of the sickness [plague] ; our outward senses
are not affected by it, and our understanding does not comprehend it ; it i*
atrial and volatile, and it is fixed and coagulated when it concretes into bubo.
Hence I conceived that the way for me to penetrate into the most latent quality
of this pestiferous venom was by chemistry, not with knives but glasses, not
with iron but fire. Having lanced a pestilential boil of Mr. Godfrey Reshel, I
collected the virulent matter, and putting it in a retort, and luting a receiver t»
it very close, I applied degrees of fire: at first came over a water, then a more
fat and oily matter, and at last a salt ascended into the neck of the retort. The
fire being removed and the glasses separated, there came forth so great a stench
that 1000 wounds exposed to the summer heat could not have equalled it.
And though I thought I had sufficiently armed my senses against it, that is, my
ears with cotton, my nose with pessaries, my mouth with sponges, all dipped
in vinegars and treacles, yet as if touched with a thunderbolt I was struck with
a violent trembling of my body. To make short, having broken the glass, I
gave some of this horridly stinking salt to Mr. Reshel to taste, and then I
tasted it myself, and it was found to have an acrimony as great as aqua regis.
To this acrimony the author ascribes all the phaenomena which occur in the
plague ; for the cure of which he employed sudorifics and cordials.*

* Little light is thrown upon the nature of contagion by this chemical observation. Pus taken
from a common ulcer or abscess would doubtless yield, when urged by the fire, a product as fetid an4
as acrimonioivs as that obtained in the above recited experiipent.

3r2

492 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l68l.

I

The Way hy which the Author preserved himself in this Contagion,

Because no alexiphartnic is sufficient in this contagio», therefore grounding
my judgment on the principles of Harvey about the motion of the heart, and
the circulation of the blood, and some other of Bartholine and others, I con-
cluded this pestiferous venom, attracted by the breath or pores by the circulation
of the blood, to be carried to the axillary and inguinal glandules, &c. where if
it long stagnates it concretes into buboes which tend to maturation ; but if it
opens itself a way, and passes with the natural motion of the blood, and so is
carried to the heart, then death ensues. Therefore not only for myself, but
for two other friends, I made incision with a lancet, in inguine dextro et sinistro,
and put in a seton, to the end that by this artificial way the venom might find
a passage. This I often tried with good success, great quantity of matter always
voiding that way, but more notably when I was any ways touched with pestilen-
tial strokes or alterations. By the help of which I kept myself in good
health.*

^n Universal natural Preservative against Infection, published for the common
Good. By Jacobus Johannes JVenceslaus Dobrzensky de Nigro Ponte, Doctor
and Professor of Philosophy and Physic, Prague, 168O. Philos. Collects
N° 2, p. 20.

This universal natural preservative is this : That whoever converses with
f>atients affected with any disease whatever, if he would preserve himself from
infection, must be sure so long as he abides within the sphere of their steams
never to swallow his spittle, but to spit it out. For he conceives that to be the
part which first and most easily imbibes the infection ; and by that swallowed,
the infection is carried as by a proper vehicle into the stomach, where it works
those dismal and fatal effects.

The infection of pestilential fevers (he observes) proceeds from a seminal
ferment, which is emitted by the patient in ihe form of steams into the incom-
passing air, and so infects all things within a certain sphere or distance. This
drawn into the mouth by the breath is apt to infect the saliva or spittle, which
being swallowed infects the stomach, and so the rest of the body ; but being
spit out frees the body from infection. And therefore he conceives that strong
smelling and strong tasting substances kept in the mouth, and chewed to pro-

* Issues and setons have been much commended as preservatives from pestilential contagion by
other medical writers 5 but it is peculiar we believe to the author of these observations to make
them in the places here mentioned} where they must always be extremely troublesome.

1»H1L0S0PHICAL THANSACTIONS. 498

mote spitting, are of very good and necessary use for physicians, surgeons, and
apothecaries, &c. that are necessitated to visit infected persons,*

Account of a strange Birth ivhich in May last happened at Hilhrewers in Somer-
setshire. ByMr.ui.P. Philos. Collect. N°2, p. 21.

Nature here designed and made preparation for twins. For the joining of
these two infant bodies beginning at the navel, each has all its parts below to
the very toes proper to itself, and not only distinct all along, but separate.
Upwards beneath the breasts these bodies part again, and then all is as below,
distinct and separate. When laid supine, they seem to have but one body
where joined ; but when turned there is a deep furrow between them, with
each a distinct back bone, &c. Each has nipples in their proper place re-
specting the several bodies, but one of each is seen before, the other behind
with respect to the whole ; they do not wake and sleep together : they suck and
cry heartily, exonerate apart freely, and are likely to live, if the multitudes that
come to see them, sometimes 500 in a day, do not occasion the shortening of
their lives. They are christened by the names of Aquila and Priscilla, though
"both females ; they were born by an easy labour to the mother, who had had five
children before. The midwife said, the after-burden, though but one, was
triple in size to what is usual ; that the navel string was very large. It is re-
membered, that about 40 years since such a birth occurred in Wales, and that
the children lived so long as to be able to talk to each other, and that in tears,
when the one thought what the other should do when either should happen to
die ; but that both died together.

An Hypothesis of the Structure of a Muscle, and the Reason of its Contraction ;
read in the Surgeons Theatre, Anno 1 674-5. By Dr. C. Philos. Collect.
N° 2, p. 22.

Having shown and proved at large, that the motion of a muscle is performed
only by the carnous fibres, and that each distinct carnous fibre had a power of
contracting itself; I offered an hypothesis of the structure of one carnous fibre,

* There is little doubt that infection is received in this manner in numerous instances. It is how-
ever not the only way in which it is received, and therefore the ejection of the spittle will not alone
be always a sufficient security against infection. On a too near approach to the sick, the contagious
particles may, in the act of inhalation, enter the nostrils, as well as the mouth, and be detained in
the mucus secreted from the Schneiderian membrane j hence the propriety of cleansing the nose as well
as the mouth. Moreover contagion is absorbed by tlie pores of the skin 3 hence the necessity of
washing the hands and face after visiting the sick.

49-1 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN0 1681.

since the force of the whole muscle is but an aggregate of the contractions of
each particular fibre : and this I did in farther explication of an hypothesis,
printed in the year 1664, grounded on an experiment made for that purpose
before the Royal Society a little before that time. In that printed paper it was
said, a muscle in contraction swelled like a bladder blown up, which would raise
a great weight according to the experiment shown to the Society : an objection
arose, that we did not see any such conspicuous swelling in the belly of a muscle ;
to answer which, and explain the hypothesis more clearly, I made this farther
addition.

1. I supposed each distinct carnous fibre as AEF (fig. 2, pi. 14) to consist of
an infinite number of very small globules or little bladders, which for explana-
tion sake I here express as so many little triangles, e. g. four in this fibre, ALB,
BMC, CND, DOE, all opening into each other at the points A, B, C, D, E.

2. I not only supposed, but endeavoured to prove, that from the artery of
each particular muscle, the nourishing juice of the muscle was thrown out and
extravasated to run at large among the carnous fibres, and insinuating itself by
the constant pulse of the heart was driven on, and after mixing with another
liquor it meets with between the fibres in the muscles, came to be strained
through the coat of each globule or little bladder into the cavity of it : and
likewise, that from each ramification of the nerve within the muscle, that
second sort of matter much more fluid and active than the former is extravasated,
and these mixed together as beforesaid, enter into each little bladder, and by
these constant agitations, ebullition, or effervescence, which with the natural
heat that is partly the cause, and partly the constant assister of this motion, and
makes that which we call the very life of every part, as long as the animal
lives, keeps these globules or small vesicles always distended. How it enters in
and sends out its effete particles again into the mass of blood to be discharged
by transpiration, and every moment takes in fresh, I endeavoured in those
lectures to show at large.

3. By the aforesaid agitation each little bladder ALB, BMC, &c. is always
as beforesaid distended more or less, as long as the animal has life or warmth.

4. The force or energy of which distention to contract the fibre AF, either
into itself from both extremes A and F, or if A be fixed, from F, and so to
raise with it any weight, as that at F to E, or any limb as fig. bicip. the arm
and hand F, was before demonstrated in the printed paper, and in an experi-
ment entered in the journal of the Society.

5. By these 4 small bladders, I answer the fore-mentioned objection, which
was made against the principle laid down in the printed paper, and show that
the fibre AF, and so of the whole muscle, does not distend itself as one single

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIOKS, '409

'great bladder AKE, from C to K, in raising the weight from F to E, but those
innumerable small bladders are each distended but a very little imperceptibly
space, and yet produce the same effect to raise a weight from F to E. As if we
suppose 4 little bladders only for example sake, each of them being distended
from Q to L, shall all together raise the weight F to E, as well as a single large
one swelling from C to K : the demonstration is manifest from the view of the
figure, where the triangles AKE, ALB, BMC, &c., being all similar, the
several small sides AL, LB, BM, &c. all taken together, will be equal AK,
KE together, and will produce on the whole the same contraction, from F to
E, as the two AK, KE, though by only a 4th part of the swelling out, at L,
M, N, O, as of that at K. Now if instead of 4 little bladders in a fibre, we
substitute 4000, that fibre shall raise the weight through the space EF with the
4000th part of the swelling, and so of the 400,000th part, &c.

6. Hence was at large shown : ] . The manner of the blood's circulation in
each particular muscle, what it contributed to this motion. 2. What the per-
spiration out of each muscle did towards it. 3. That there was some swelling
in the contraction of each muscle. 4. How every muscle in contraction grows
more hard, dense, and compact. 5. The necessar)' cause of every muscle having
its antagonist. 6. Why on a paralysis or wound of one side, the antagonist
presently contracts. 7' Why upon fractures it runs up. 8. Why in animals
killed, while the flesh is warm, there appear so many jerks and contractions of
muscles. 9. Why a muscle cut in the middle runs up to each end, &c. These
and several other particulars I endeavoured to make out at large in those lec-
tures ; yet only in the way of an hypothesis, not as if I did presume to believe
I had found out the true secret of animal motion, when I am almost persuaded,
no man ever did or will be able to explain either this or any other phenomenon
in nature's true way and method.

^4 Specimen of a New Al-mon-ac*ybr Ever : or, A Rectified Account of Time,
by a Luni-Solar Year. By Dr. Robert Wood. Philos. Collect. N° 2, p. 26. •

The garter, fig. 3 and 4, pi. 14, shows the number of days, 30, 29, 30,

29, &c. which each of the 1 2 months of the year is to contain : and in the
buckle is discovered, through a hole, the days of a 13th month, 31, 30, 31,

30, &c. to be added to the years 2, 5, 7, 10^ 13, 15, 18, 21, 24, 26, 29, 32,
34, 37, in all to 14 of 38, as in a cycle behind ; which being supposed move-

* AUmon-ac. — Our ancestors used to carve the courses of the moon of the whde year upon a
square stick, which they called an Al-mon-aght, that is, Al-moon-hecd. Verstegan, p. 58. The
Dutch Al-maen-acht imports the same. .

49^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^ANNO l68i,

able the 38th part every year backwards, or contrary to the months in the
garter, its revolution is completed in 38 years : and the 38th year current, or
the year of the period or cycle, is shown through another hole. The new
year and account may best begin with the vernal equinox ; or rather with the
day of the new moon happening near midnight about that time, as March 10,
l680. Once every century, or to one year in 100, add one day, viz. to the
first 50th year, or middle of the century, or rather to the first 70th year, be-
cause the first new moon, March 10, l680, happens a little after midnight, and
after the vernal equinox, and then to every 100th year following; which ad-
ditional day being omitted every 230th or 240th century, if any one shall re-
quire such great exactness, will balance the account for ever.

The Egyptian hieroglyphic of the year, was a serpent curved into a circle of
ring, with the tail in its mouth; but the emblematical garter will be much more
proper for England, &c. and is so exactly fitted to the moon's motion, that one
day will not be lost or gained in millions of years.

This Al-mon-ac measures time principally by the moon, but with a great and
near respect to the annual motion of the sun or earth. The unit or least mea-
sure is a day ; and the garter or luni-solar year will be at a medium, within
about a week, or a 50th part of the true solar year; that is so near, that the
difference will not be discerned by ordinary popular observation, and therefore
must needs answer the ends of husbandry, and other civil affairs, well enough
and come often near, and be sometimes very near ; and at certain periods they
balance each other, and have a kind of coincidence, or agreement, much better
then the sun's course has with the Julian account.

The ancients generally computed their time by the moon, or by the lunar,
or luni-solar year, as some, particularly the eastern people do still ; which year
was made up of moons, or real months, to the number of 12, for the most
part, and some years 13. This appears from their calendars, &c. It is plain,
from 1 Sam. c. xx. v. 5, 18, 24, compared with v. 27, 34, that the days of
the Jewish month were the same with those of the moon : and the Greeks,
particularly the Athenians, according to the institution of their wise legislator
Solon, thus reckoned their time ; and so did the Romans also, till Julius Caesar
altered rather than mended the year.

Among the Greeks there lived, in 3 not far distant ages, 3 famous astrono-
mers in their several times, Meton, Calippus, and Hipparchus; each of whom
still farther improved astronomy, and rectified the accounts of time. Hip-
parchus the last of them, flourished about 90 or 100 years before Julius Caesar
altered the year ; yet Caesar, or his astronomer Sosigenes followed Calippus in
framing the Julian year: for Calippus's period of 76 years consisted of 27,7^9

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4^7

days, and so do 76 Julian years. About 3 centuries and a half after Caesar, the
council of Nice first, and about 2 centuries after that, Dionysius Exiguus again
introduced the decennoval cycle, called the golden number, for the celebration
of Easter; following Meton, the first and least exact of the 3 ; or rather follow-
ing both Meton and Caesar; two masters who were neither of them the best,
and who would after some time disagree and remove farther and farther from
each other; though both Caesar and the church might have had much better
pattern in Hipparchus : which mistakes of theirs have occasioned those antici-
pations and differences that have embarrassed the accounts of time. And,
though many have proposed laudable methods of rectifying these accounts, yet
still building on the old foundations, which were infirm. Pope Gregory XIII,
in his Reformation of the Calendar, about 100 years since, was obliged to wave
the golden number; and yet he has only palliated the disease; so hard it is to
cure an error in the first concoction.

The council of Nice appointed Easter to be kept the first Sunday after the
first full moon after the 21st of March; because the vernal equinox, which was
on the 25th in our Saviour's time, was then come to be on the said 21st day;
and therefore the Gregorian reformation has reduced the vernal equinox back
to that day, or brought that day to it again, by losing 10 days, and must omit
another day within 20 years : but in this garter-year, Easter will always be the
first Sunday after the first full moon of the new year, that is, after the vernal
equinox, according to the true intent and meaning of the Nicene council, or as
it was in the primitive times ; and be but a week moveable, or a month less
moveable than now, either after the old or new stile: which might perhaps
have prevented the difference, or served as an expedient for reconciling the
western and eastern churches.

The 3 cycles of Meton, Calippus, and Hipparchus, were all of them too
large for the sun, and primarily intended for the moon, or for a luni-solar year;
however that of Hipparchus was nearest to both, and very near the moon's
period.

Perhaps at first view, my 38 years period may be considered only as a double
Metonic, or semi-Calippic one, &c. ; but on farther consideration, it will be
found otherwise; for the periods of Meton and Calippus, as also that of Hip-
parchus, were all of them too great, not only for the circuit of the sun, but for
that of the moon also ; whereas mine, on the other hand, is too little for either,
and requires one additional day almost every 100 years :

Meton's ig years cycle had 6940 days, its double is 13880

Calippus's period, or 76 years, had 27759 days, its half is ....... . 138794-

VOL. II. 3 S ■

498 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

Hipparchus's period of 304 years, had 1 11035 days, its 8th part is. . 13879f

Whereas my 38 years period has but just days 13879

I have chosen rather to take the revolution of the moon than that of the sun,
for my chief and primary measure of time; because, first, the hmar phases,
and consequently months, are more easily discerned than the sun's annual
period, even by the meanest capacity : next, the observations on the moon have
been more numerous, more exact, and of far greater antiquity; astronomers
having also had the help of eclipses of very distant ages for their guide, in find-
ing out very nearly the true measure of the moon's mean motion : lastly, keep-
ing an account by the moon, we may reckon by the sun also, that is by months
and years too; whereas, on the contrary, reckoning by a solar year, months are
only empty names, and in measuring of times and seasons the moon is rendered
of no use.

A New Lamp. By Robert Boyle, Esq. Philos. Collect. N° 2, p. 33.

. In fig. 5, pi. 14, ABCD is a vessel of latten, well soldered. BC, EF, are
two bottoms soldered to the vessel. FG is a pipe soldered to the bottoms afore-
said, the aperture being in the great cavity FA. H is a hole in the pipe FG,
opening between the two bottoms B C, EF. I is another hole to which is soldered
a pipe I G bent upwards at G. PP is a small vessel fit to receive the wick of the
lamp. LM is a slender pipe open at both ends, and soldered to the cover AD
at L, and to the bottom EF at M; so that by that pipe the external air may
communicate between the two bottoms, without penetrating into the cavity AF.
N is a short pipe soldered to a hole in the cover AD, so that thereby oil may be
poured into the cavity AF; and stopped afterwards close with cork.

For filling up this machine, stop the aperture G of the pipe IG with a long pin
fitted for that purpose, as also the upper end of the pipe LM; then pour in the
oil by the aperture N; which done, the aperture N is to be shut up exactly, and
both the others, G and L to be opened. Then the oil will run through the
pipe IG, and fill the vessel P, till its surface be on the same level with the
hole H.

Now it is easy to see that this lamp is free from all the inconveniencies that
Cardan's lamp is subject to. For, first, the air does not get into it by starts as
it does in Cardan's lamp ; but when the oil in PP is wasted, and comes to have
its surface lower than the hole H, the oil from the cavity AF runs gently into
PP, because its place in the cavity AF is easily supplied by the external air,
which gets up into the said cavity AF, through the pipe LM and the hole H.
Secondly, when the air contained in the cavity AF comes to be rarefied by heat,
it drives out much oil, and so may choak up Cardan's lamp; but in this the oil.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4Qg

being so driven out, gets into the space between the two bottoms, as well as
into the vessel PP: now the said space, by reason of its size, receiving 20
or 30 times more oil than the vessel PP, it follows that the surface of the oi
therein rises 20 or 30 times less than if all the oil had been driven into the said
vessel. Therefore, when we fill the lamp, we must take care that the pipe L
be well closed, so that the air between the two bottoms, finding no vent, may
keep the oil from filling that space, which by that means, when the hole L is
open, will be fit to receive the oil driven by the rarefaction of the air in th^
cavity AF. Thirdly, the oil being always kept nearly at the same distance from
the fiame, the wick will not be quickly consumed. Fourthly, you have the
conveniency of putting new oil into the lamp without moving or extinguishing
it, only closing up G and L, and pouring the oil through N, as abovesaid.

Account of a Book, Jo. siphons. Borelli de Motu Animaliurrif published since his
Death* Philos, Collect, N° 2, p. 35.

The work itself is divided into two parts. — ^The 1st of which discourses
largely of the conspicuous or visible motions of animals, namely, of the bend-
ing, extension, convolution, and progression, of the external parts and joints;
and, in fine, of going, flying, swimming, and the like. The 2d, of the causes
of the motion of the muscles, and of the internal motions, v. g. of the hu-
mours which are made throughthevesselsand viscera of animals: demonstrating
by what force, and with what mechanic organs, the parts of animals are moved;
afterwards, the manner of the muscles acting ; then of the motive faculty dif-
fused through the nerves, by which the muscles are actuated ; then of the
internal motions, which do not depend on the command of the will, as the
pulsation or beating of the heart, and the circulation of the blood ; of the use
of respiration, and of the modes and organs by which it is performed ; of the
spirits or nervous juices which give motion and sense, and serve also for the
nourishment of the parts; of their motion, and locomotive action; of the ne-
cessity of eating, and the cause of concoction and digestion of the food ; of the
depuration of the chyle, and of the manner by which nutrition is performed,
and the excrements cast out, by the pores, glandules, and kidneys; of the cir-
culation of the bile or gall in the abdomen ; of a certain circulation seminis ge-p
nitalis; of sleeping and waking; and last of all, of some internal motions that
are disturbed and morbid, namely by convulsion, and from lassitudes and fevers.

The whole work, in 2 vols. 4to. is not yet published, only some parts of what
is printed are come to hand, in which, among other things, are contained,

* He died Christmas last l679, at Rome. See account of his life, vol. i. p. 224-. ^

3 s a

500 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

1. A way how a man may swim under water like a fish, as in fig. 6, pi. 14. He
breathes by the help of a bag about his head, containing a quantity of air, which
also keeps his head buoyant : through this he sees before him by the help of a
flat glass, fixed in it just before his face. He moves himself by ducksfoot pat-
tens, applied to the soles of his feet. He buoys up, or sinks himself in the
water, by the help of a vacuum pump, wherein, by the help of a rack and winch
to be turned with his hand, he can with ease make a greater or less vacuity, and
consequently make himself lighter or heavier in the water, &c. — 2. Another way
of swimming under water, and breathing by the help of a leathern pipe, kept
open by spiral wires, and extending from the swimmer's head to the top of the
water; a description of which you have in fig. 7. — 3. A way to make a sub-
marine vessel, by which several persons may pass together from place to place
under water, accommodated with ways to row and move it to and fro, and to
make it rise and sink in the water, &c. It is supposed it may be much like that
which Mersenne long since published from the shape and make of it, fig. 8.—-
4. A net-like form of the carnous fibres of a muscle; by which he supposes the
contraction or shortening of those fibres to be made, as may be conceived from
fig. 1, pi. 15, where by pulling the muscles abroad sidewise, they are contracted
lengthwise.

Phocipna ; or, The Anatomy of a Porpm, dissected at Greskam College ; with a
preliminary Discourse concerning Anatomy, and a Natural History of Animals;
by Edward Tyson, M. D. Lond. Philos. Collect. N° 2, p. 37.

In writing a natural history of animals, the author proposes, that there may
be a threefold account given; a physiological, an anatomical, and a medical;
and these taken rather from autopsy than books, and of our own country, rather
than the whole world ; and to begin from the lowest degree of animation in
zoophytes, or plant-animals, so ascending by nature's clue, to run through all
the several tribes of animals, observing the harmony she keeps, or the liberty
she takes in the various formation of them.

In the mean time he wishes that we had a good account of some of the most
anomalous and heteroclite sorts of animals, or of those whose species are most
diff'erent ; for one of these may serve in a great measure for those of the whole
genus, as the anatomy of a porpus for the cetaceous kind. In the anatomy of
the porpus he observes, that it is of great affinity with dolphins; that ifc-is vivi-
parous, lactiferous, and stands in need of respiration, like land quadrupeds.
That internally it so much resembles them, that there is very little difference in
the make and formation of the viscera of both; but of several parts here the
structure is most remarkable; as of the fat or blubber, which is only oil con-

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 601

tained in abundance of small cells or bladders. That it has 3 stomachs, 300
kidneys, each having its particular cmulgents, pelvis, and ureter; 2 glandulae
renales ; 1 0 spleens ; a urinary bladder ; an omentum or call, made up of a
curious contexture or network of vessels and fibres, though Bartholine and Jo.
Dan. Major deny it to have any; a pancreas and ductus pancreaticus ; a large
liver, but no vesicula fellea, or gall bag. That the organs of generation are
very curious, having vasa preparantia, ovaria, tubi fallopiani, uterus, pudendum,
clitoris, et ubera. That the thorax is divided from the abdomen by a large mus-
cular diaphragm, and in it are the lungs with two large lobes ; the heart, which
has two auricles, and two ventricles ; and on the spine an admirable contexture
of sanguinary vessels, variously contected and winding, emerging from the me-
dulla spinalis. That above the sternum was the thymus, the glandulae maxil-
lares, thyroideae. In the mouth he describes the tongue, the teeth, the larynx,
which is very remarkable, the fistula or spiraculum, through which it spouts out
water like whales ; the os hyoidea. He takes notice also, that this fish had eye-
lids, and in them he observed Steno's ductus. That the eyes had all the tu-
nicles, humours, and muscles, as a man's, as also the musculus septimus, or sus-
pensorius of brutes. That the organ of the ear was different from any yet
described, and the porus auditorius very small. That it had a tympanum, but
no incus, stapes, or malleolus. That the brain was very large, and so different
from those of other fishes, that almost in all things it resembled Dr. Willis's
figures, only it wanted the par olfactorium, or the first pair of nerves. In the
skeleton the most remarkable thing, he observes, is the fore fin, which much
resembles an arm, having a scapula, an os humeri or brachii, -a. radius and ulna,
a carpus, metacarpus, and five digiti. And though but from a single subject,
yet the author has been so exact and curious in describing each part, that he
has supplied several defects, and corrected many errors in the accounts of the
anatomy of this fish given us formerly by Rondeletius, Bartholine, Jo. Dan.
Major, and some others, and illustrated the whole with various figures.

The first Vol. of the English Atlas, containing a Description of the Places next
the North Pole, as also of Miiscovy, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, and their SC'
veral Dependencies. Oxford, l680. Philos. Collect. N° 2, p. SQ.

An Account of an Observation (consonant with that of Dr, Tysmi) made by Dr.
Samson, on dissecting a morbid Body. Philos. Collect. N° 2, p. 4Q.

In a woman lately dissected, who was the day before her death with great dif-

502 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

ficulty delivered of a dead child, there were found two large globose tumors,
depending on the left testicle, and may rather be called* preternaturally-grown
eggs, or parts of the extended ovarium : both of them lay in the pelvis, under
the womb, and so hindered the egress of the foetus, which was large and well
grown. They were covered with a thick membrane, which had its veins and
arteries as conspicuous as those are in the urinary bladder. That nearest to the
testicle was the least, of the size of a cocoa-nut, which had in it a fatty sub-
stance, not fluid, of the colour of the yolk of an egg, and in the midst of it
a lock of hair, which when it was freed from the grease, appeared of a flaxen
colour : the fat itself crackled in the fire, melted and took flame like lard, and
in a spoon over a candle would boil and smoke, excepting some small grumous
parts. In the midst of the membrane was a hard and knotty substance, in which
lay a small bone of a strange shape, with a periosteum on it, which was hard to
separate from it. The bone is hard, white, and somewhat larger than the largest
of the bones in the meatus auditorius.

The other tumor was thrice as large as the former, and about two inches dis-
tant from it, yet connected to it by a strong membrane of the extended testicle.
Opening it, there sprung out a more white and liquid sort of grease; but in the
middle was as thick as the former, and of the colour and constitution of live
honey ; for which cause it may be called a meliceris; though the inflammability,
both of this and the other, makes them both steatomata. In the midst of this
lay enveloped a large lock or two of hair, variously entangled like those the
countrymen call elfs-locks, which are a species of the plica polonica : the colour
was of a blackish brown, and the quantity four times as much as the former.
Some part of this hair was long, and evidently grew out of the inward parts of
the membrane, in which it was radicated, and from whence it was plucked.
This fat was more inflammable than the other, neither did it crackle in burning
as the former, and left fewer spots in the spoon. In the duplicatures of this
membrane also was a lump which contained another misshapen bone, very hard
and hollow, covered with a skin like a periosteum without, and the dura meninx
within : so that it is hard to say, whether nature was forming a tooth with part
of the jaw, or the whole cranium.

On Infinitely -infinite Fractions, By Dr. Rob. Wood, Master of the Mathematical
School, lately founded by his sacred Majesty, in Christ-Church Hospital y for
the Improvement of Navigation. Philos. Collect. N° 3, p. 45.

Infinitely-infinite fractions, or all the powers of all the fractions, whose nu-

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 503

merator is 1 , are all of them together equal to an unit, or 1 . And so of others,
as here below.

P
A R , ^

q c qq

V ^^^^ ■3- "T -if "T -TT ~r "5T- O^C*

&c. &c.

A is a rank or series of absolute numbers, or rather of all the fractions whose
numerator is 1 ; which is supposed to be continued in infinitum downwards.
R is another series of all the roots, whose numerator is 1, of all the powers of
such fractions ; supposed likewise to be continued in infinitum, p, all the re-
spective powers of such fractions^ viz. squares, cubes, &c. or so many ranks of
geometrical proportionals; supposed to be continued in infinitum, both to the
right hand, and also downwards.

Lemma. Each of the said ranks of powers, together with their respective
roots, is equal to each of the several numbers under A respectively.

a c eg f d b

Demonstration. If from the line a h you take, for instance, ^ part towards a,
suppose ac; and also from the other end of the same line ah, you take two such
parts, or 4 parts, towards h, suppose hd, viz. a number of parts less by two than
the whole line a h was first supposed to be divided into, there will remain the
line cc? = cc = -i- of ab. Then again, if from cd you take ^ part thereof to-
wards a, suppose ce, and from the other end 4 parts of the same cd, suppose df,
there will remain only ef=ce = ^o{cd. And if you still go on without ceas-
ing, to take on the side towards a, ^ part of what was taken last before, and
twice as much on the other side towards b, there shall be found between the two
lines last taken, always remaining 4- part of the line from which they were taken.
From which -i- part there may still after the same manner be supposed to be taken
two other such lines. But if this be supposed to be done infinite times actually,
then there will nothing more remain between, and so the continued division on
either side will come exactly to the point g, supposing ag to he -^ of ab and bg
= 2 ag. For, because that which was taken away towards b, was always twice
as much as that which was taken away towards a, the total sum of all the lines
taken away towards b, which altogether make up the line bg, must be twice as
much as the line ag, which is the total sum of all the lines taken away towards

504 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iSSl.

a, viz. bg = 1 ag; and consequently bg + (ig, or the whole line ab, is equal
to 3 ag: and therefore ag =^ -^ of ab, which was to be demonstrated.

The like construction and demonstration may be used in taking away any other
part of any quantity, and the like part again of the first mentioned part, and so
in infinitum. The total sum of all the parts so taken, or supposed to be taken,
shall be equal to a certain quantity, or part, or fraction, whose denominator
shall be less by an unit than the denominator of the first mentioned part ; as

X — JL J- _1_ -4- 1 &r JL — _J__ -1- 1 -I- 1 Sirn

T 7 1^ 4 9 1^ 3 4 3) *-vv^. g , y -f- -j-o-gr -p 1000) ^^'~"

And so, that which the incomparable Archimedes, in squaring the parabola, has
only demonstrated in one particular case, viz. -i. = ^ -|- _i^ -|- ^'_. -}- _^ -|- ^-jjVt,
&c. and that with a huge apparatus of preliminary propositions, amounting to a
whole book, is here universally demonstrated in all cases, which are infinite, and
by a very simple and easy method, in Des Cartes way.

Now if each of the said ranks of powers, together with their respective roots,
be equal to the several numbers or fractions under A; as is demonstrated by the
lemma ; then is A the sum of them all, or equal to them all : that is, R + p =
A = R 4- 1 : for R is the same with A — -f , or l, or but {-^) one infinite part
larger. Wherefore p= 1. Q. E. D, viz. infinitely infinite fractions are equal
to a unit, viz. to the least integer root.

Hence it appears; 1. That there is given a progression in infinitum. — 2. That
there is a progression not only to one infinite, but to several infinites, or rather
to infinite infinites. — 3. That this may be performed, viz. this calculation, by a
very limited and slight capacity. — 4. That this whole progression, or these infi-
nite progressions, may be numbered or summed up. — 5. And that into a sum,
not only not infinite, but so very small, as to be less than any number. — It ap-
pears further, that some infinites are equal, others unequal; and that one infi-
nite is equal to two, or three, or more, either finites or infinites.
For,

1. The infinite powers of the first rank are = -i- = -j\-^, and also equal to all
the infinitely-infine powers of all the other ranks.

1 8

The infinite powers of the second rank are =
Those of the third are =
Those of the fourth are = -^ = -^i
Those of the fifth are = -gV = -rl
&c. in infinitum.

viz. equal to the re-
spective mean pro-
portional numbers
between the square
numbers respective-
i^ly, ex. gr.

4, 6, 9

9, 12, i(j

l6, 20, 25

25, 30, 36

&c. in infinitum.

FHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 505

2. The infinite powers of the first two ranks are = -f.

Those of the first three are := ^,
Those of the first four are = 4-.
Those of the first five are = -f.
&c. in infinitum.

3. All the powers of all the infinite ranks, except the first, are = -^.

all, except the first two, are = -^.
all, except the first three, are = 4-.
all, except the first four, are = -J-.
< &c. in infinitum.

These later corollaries may all appear by simple addition and subduction, and
so may many more.

Experiments made with the Liquid and Solid Phosphorus. Communicated to the
Collector, by Dr. Frederick Slare, F. R. S. and one of the College of Physicians.
Philos. Collect. N° 3, p. 48.

The experiments that I showed the Royal Society the last summer were, some
with a liquid, and some with the solid phosphorus. These two do not materially
diflfer, being made both out of substances taken from the human body. The
liquid is a substance mixed with a liquor, which though it burns a person when in
a solid mass, will not offend the most tender hand, or even heat, when washed
in it. This phosphorus retains not its light very long, if close stopped; yet in
one sort I have observed a kind of flashing six or seven times successively,
though the glass was close stopped. The other phosphorus, which is solid,
differs not, as was said, materially from the fluid, being made for the most part
from urine ; but I am satisfied that it may be as well made of blood, if it could
be as easily obtained as urine in great quantities, since the latter is only the se-
rum of the blood strained through the kidneys. In this preparation, we have
not only the common analysis into phlegm, spirits, volatile salts, sulphurs, or oils ;
but divers other extraordinary appearances before this grand product comes.

The substance of this phosphorus may be made as transparent as any resinous
body, and will melt like wax in warm water: and when cold, it is exceedingly tough,
and cuts like luna cornea, or rather somewhat harder. When it is all under the
water, it ceases to shine; but whenever any part of it chances to emerge, or get
up into the air, though the glass be hermetically sealed, or perfectly shut, yet
it will shine. I have kept it in a large glass without water for several days, and
yet continually shining with little or no diminution of its light or weight.

VOL. II. 3 T

506 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16QI ,

Of this solid I have had some parcels much more vigorous and inflammable
than others. When I made some experiments last summer with this solid
phosphorus, every one handled it without any danger: but I have since had
some parcels that would scarcely endure the touch of a warm hand, without
taking fire and burning. Making some experiments in the company of a very
worthy and ingenious gentleman, I laid down a piece of this luminous substance,
about two drachms in weight, and it took fire when no candle was in the room ;
it blazed like a faggot, and burnt the carpet and board it lay upon : this sort is
only for the experienced and careful to meddle with. The less vigorous af-
forded us this experiment. We wrote with a pointed end what words we pleased
in the light ; then we removed into the dark, and had very radiant and legible
characters, looking like words written with a beam of light. If we carry these
glorious letters to the fire side, and suffer them there to grow warm, they will
presently turn into dark lines, and remain as long as good ink may be thought
to do. This light is very diffusive of itself, for I have marked down above a
hundred characters with this illustrious pencil, and found not a twentieth part
consumed. In like manner I weighed oat half a grain, and spread it over my
hand at night, which it gilded all over and continued light all the night ; for so
I found it next morning. As a further proof of its diffusive quality, having
weighed out one grain and counterpoised it in good scales, it continued to
flame in the open air for seven or eight days, insomuch that shutting my study
windows by days, I could always see a beam of fire, and when I looked intent
upon it, it sent up a white flame into the ambient air; which a large piece does
very remarkably. After all was burnt out, we had no ashes or recrements, save
only a little moisture which tasted subacid. Having suffered a larger piece to
burn out, I had more moisture, which tasted like a weaker oleum sulphuris per
campanain.* Its fumes are sulphureous; and in all its properties it seems mostly
referable to sulphurs on account of its inflammability, and because it neither
loses nor is dissolved in water.

What medical use may be made of this noble concrete, time may discover.
And what service it may be of in helping us to explain other phsenomena of
nature, I should be glad to know, particularly as to that observation of the
learned Dr. Croone, who, on rubbing his body with a fresh and well warmed shift,
has made both to shine; and also that of a worthy Bristol gentleman, who with
his son told me, that after much walking, both their stockings will frequently
shinc-f*

• Phosphoric acid. (Phosphorous acid of the new nomenclature.)
f An electrical phenomenon.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 50/

Some Microscopical Observations made by Mr. j4nthony Leuwenhoeck, concerning
the Globulous Particles in LiquorSy and the Animals in Semine Masculino In-
sectorum. Philos. Collect. N° 3, p. 5 1 .

I set wine to ferment in a bottle in my study, the lees of which, after it had
done fermenting, I found to be, for the most part, made up of globules, con-
creted of 6 lesser, which were less than those of blood or yest. The same
also was observed in other instances with wine, as well as with blood, and beer
yest. In fermenting syrups the globules seemed to consist of 3 or 4 only.

The same was observed in water also, viz. the globules chiefly consisting of
assemblages of 6 other globules. Among these globules too were seen many
animalcules swimming about. In milk, warm from the cow, were found glo-
bules of the size only of the 6th part of a blood- globule, and others of 2, 3, 4,
or 5, sticking together. Such globules also are found in the air, in the time of
mists or fogs.

Having examined the male seed of a red chafer, 2 of which I had coupled
together, I found that there were many living animals lying together in a fluid
matter, the fore part of their body roundish, but with long tails. I also exa-
mined the male seed of May flies, and I saw at first many little worms in it,"
but none alive; afterwards taking 2 coupled, I found an opening in the back
of the female, and several eggs there; and I could plainly see living crea-
tures in the male seed wriggling and bending themselves like worms into 6 or 8
flexures.

I examined grashoppers also, and found worms in the male seed, but not
alive, in the month of July ; but continuing my observations till the latter end
of August, I found them perfectly alive, lying in some places 25 or more toge-
ther, with their upper parts ranged in order by each other, and their tails
spread out wider, and making much motion with them like serpents, though
the other parts lay still. Prosecuting my inquiry further into the male seed
of flies, I saw a great many small thin creatures or worms. In furthering
this inquiry', I observed the stomach of a fly full of a clear substance, mixed
with a great number of square figures or bodies, whose angles were all right,
some were exact squares, others oblong, and of diff^erent size, and so clear and
thin, as if one had seen a great quantity of looking-glass plates ground, of se-
veral sizes. This issued out of the stomach by a hole I made with a needle's
point; I observed also many living worms in a female horse-fly, which were
larger and shorter, but their wriggling much quicker, and they lay in a clear
liquor within the bowels of the fly.

As I formerly spent much time and pains to observe how the worms of insects

3x2

508 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO iGSl.

were produced out of the eggs, and how they grew and spun themselves a co-
vering like the silkworm, and after several changes, turned into flies of several
kinds ; so I have now much laboured to trace the original of life in the male
seed of insects. And to my great satisfaction I have certainly discovered a great
quantity of animals, having the figure of serpents, but longer and thinner in
proportion, and shut up in small bladders about the size of a small sand, which

1 take to be the testicles of those flies. And I am satisfied that flies have 2 of
those bladders, though I could find but 1 in some, because I suppose the other
might be broken by dissecting. But I am most surprised, that in the seed of so
very small a creature as a fly, there should be found living creatures so large in
proportion.

I have found such animalcules in creatures of all sizes and species, from a
horse to a small horse-fly, and might have seen them possibly in smaller, if
their exceeding small ness and transparency did not hinder. I have often found
a great company of animals in the male seed of gnats, but smaller than those
of flies, and have often seen great quantities of eggs in the female, which
make her look larger and clearer.

I have lately examined water, in which beaten pepper was steeped, and found

2 sorts of animals for shape, and each of those sorts to contain greater and
smaller kinds; the greater I supposed the elder, the less the younger; I con-
ceive I saw in some of the greater sorts the young ones in their bodies; and
when I observed 2 swimming joined together, I conceived they were coupled.

^ JVay of helping Short-sightedness. By Mr. Rob. Hooke. Philos. Collect.

W 3, p. 59.

Having found by many trials, that some short-sighted persons could find little
or no relief by the use of concave glasses, for seeing objects distinct at any dis-
tance; I considered whether convex glasses might not be made useful for that
purpose. Hereupon I considered the cause of short-sightedness, and finding
that any one might be made short-sighted, and to be able to distinguish nothing
but what is placed very near his eye, but within certain limits of distance, by
looking through a very deep pair of spectacles, such as old men use; I con-
cluded that what glasses should make this man, whilst looking through these
spectacles, see things at a greater distance, would also help any other person
that should be short-sighted by nature.

Next I considered, that by the help of a convex glass, placed between the
object and the eye, the image of the object may be made to appear at any dis-
tance from the eye; and consequently all objects may thereby be made to ap-

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 509

pear in a place not too far ofF nor too near to, but at a convenient distance
from the eye ; so that the short-sighted eye shall view the picture of the object
in the same manner as if the object itself were in that place. But then be-
cause the pictures themselves are inverted, and therefore will be uncouth to
one not used to see them in that posture, I considered of these expedients to
help that defect also.

First, if it be only for reading of a book or writing, there needs nothing
but the inversion of it, and then holding the convex at a due distance ; for the
picture of the letters will appear erected in the due place, for the eye to see and
distinguish them very plainly.

Secondly, for seeing to write, I thought this would be the best expedient ;
that the short-sighted person should first learn to read with his naked eye up-
side down, which may be quickly attained.

Thirdly, for distinguishing objects at a distance, I can assert by my own ex-
perience, that with a little use of contemplating objects inverted, one shall have
as good an idea, and as true a knowledge of all manner of objects, as if they
were seen erected in their natural posture. For, in truth, all men have the
picture of the object inverted at the bottom of the eye, and not erected, which
is the place where they are really seen ; and yet we see by use, that we have an
idea of it as if it were erected, and by much use of seeing things inverted, the
same idea will be formed as by seeing them erected.

Of the best Form of horizontal Sails for a Mill, and of the inclined Sails of
Ships. By Mr. Hooke. Philos. Collect. N°3, p. 6].

The invention of horizontal vanes consists in disposing each of them so, as
that they may receive the greatest impression from the wind that is possible in
every point of the circumference through which they pass; and the least hin-
drance to the motion by the stagnant air behind. This is founded on the same
principle with that of the sailing of ships, and other vessels on the sea, viz.
on disposing and ordering of the vane or sail so, as to stand in the best position
possible to move the arms of the mill or the body of the ship. The first prin -
ciple then common to both is, that the vane or sail be as near as possible a per-
fect plain and smooth surface, without any bellying or curvity. Secondly, that
the air may have as many passages between the parts of the vane or sail as may
be, that the moved air may come to it as free as possible without being inter-
cepted by a stagnant air before it, to impede or divert its force. Thirdly, that
the plain of the vane or sail be put in the middle inclination, between the way
of the wind and the way of the arm^ or that of the body of the ship.

510 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO iSSl.

This contrivance will not only be useful for all manner of mills, either for
grinding, sawing, polishing, bruising, drawing and raising water, blowing bel-
lows, &c. in the same manner as common windmills are now used; but may
be also of great use for watermills in rivers, where there can no dam be made,
as may also the perpendicular vanes of other mills.

An Occultation of Aldeharan, or the BuWs Eye, by the Moon, Jan. 1, N. S.
]681, observed at Dantzic by M. Hevelius. Philos. Collect. N° 3, p. Qd.

The star's first immersion was at 7^ 37"^, viz. at Mare Syrticum, under the
island Cercinna, the altitude of Andromeda's Head being then 50° 32'. The
star emerged at S'^ 46"^, viz. at the greater island of the Caspian Sea.

An Eclipse of the Moon, of August the igth, l68], N. S. in the Morning, ob^

served at the Royal Observatory of Paris. Philos. Collect. N° 3, p. QQ.

Digits eclipsed, h. m. s.

0° O' O'^. . The beginning at. 1 58 30

6 O O .. At the centre of the moon 2 37 30

10 1 0 . . The greatest obscuration 3 35 45

Q 0 O . . To the centre of the moon 4 29 O

O O O . . The end of the eelipse 5 13 O

The whole duration 3 14 30

Note, That at 5^ 13"^ §6", the apparent altitude of the upper edge of the
sun was 17' 10", and that of the moon 1° ll' 30'^

The same Eclipse of August 1 9, in the Morning, 0, S. 1 68 1 , observed at Green-
wich by Mr. Flamsteed. Philos. Collect. N° 3, p. Q7 .

Beginning of the eclipse at 1^ 50"^ 40^ in the morning, corrected time. At
3^ 14"^ 12^ the remaining lucid parts were 109^2 = 5' 27'^, after which, the moon
was no more seen for clouds.

A full Account of divers strange Symptoms which happened to a Patient at Berne.
By Sigismund Konig, M. D. Abridged and translated from the Latin.
Philos. Collect. N" 3, p. 68.

This communication gives a history of the case of a young woman, Marga-
retta Lauwer, at that time about 25 years of age, who in the spring of 1678,
when she was in her 21st year, menstruis de^cientibus, was affected with the
most excruciating pains, seizing at different times various parts of the body,
and accompanied with a sudden eruption of vesicles or bladders, of a hand's

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 511

breadth, filled with a serous fluid, and producing a most violent burning sen-
sation; so as to be quite intolerable, inducing delirium, unless the contained
fluid was speedily let out. When the blisters were thus destroyed in one part,
they soon afterwards appeared in another. The girl was removed to the hos-
pital, where she had the assistance of all the physicians thereto belonging. After
resisting a course of demulcents, dissolvents, evacuants, &c.; the disorder
yielded at last to a mercurial salivation; and the patient was dismissed in March
1679, after 8 months of medical treatment, being directed to drink chalybeated
goat's milk.

From this time she continued well until the 3d of January, l680, when the
vesicular eruption re-appeared. On the 5th she was admitted into the hospital
a second time; and it was again intended to have recourse to salivation, which
had before succeeded so well. In the mean while it was thought proper to
employ some preparatory remedies. During the use of which a sudden retro-
pulsion of the acrid humour from the surface to the interior, took place on the
1 5th, when all the blisters disappeared. Although this was a matter of rejoic-
ing to the patient, she being thereby freed from her excruciating pains, yet was
no good augured from it by her physicians, who apprehended the humour might
fall upon some important viscus ; to prevent which (as much as possible) some
discutient and diaphoretic medicines were prescribed. Five days afterwards, viz.
on the 20th, these apprehensions were seen to be too well founded; the patient
being seized with pains in the loins, bladder, perinceum, and inguina, accom-
panied with a prostration of strength, loss of appetite, symptoms of inflamma-
tion, suppression of urine, a quick and irregular pulse; from all which it was in-
ferred that nephritis had taken place. Accordingly recourse was had to vene-
section, emulsions, and an emollient and paregoric clyster; which to the asto-
nishment of every person came away by vomiting, in a quarter of an hour af-
terwards. The clyster being repeated it was again discharged by the mouth,
and along with it a number of small stones, to the quantity of half an ounce
in weight, but without having any faeces mixed with them. The warm bath
was prescribed, blisters were applied to the limbs (with a view to revulsion) and
anodynes and discutients to the loins and region of the pubes; venesection
was repeated (whereby the fever was abated) and laxative decoctions were given;
which last, however, as well as broths and whatever else she swallowed, were
vomited up ; and along with them a great number of small stones, as hard as
flint, together with broken pieces, resembling white marble both in colour
and hardness. Recourse was again had to clysters, which, as before, were dis-
charged upwards, and along with them an increased quantity of stones, which
in the preceding vomitings were not larger than peas, but now were as large as

512 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l68l.

filberts. Although the difficulty of making water was extremely urgent, yet on
introducing the catheter into the bladder not a drop of water came away. The
catheter stuck there as though it had been glued in, and when it was stirred
it showed that the bladder was full of mucus. We suspected that there were
calculi in the kidneys, the bladder, and the mesenteric glands, as we had had
proof that they existed in the stomach, and intestinal canal. The belly was
distended, but not to a great degree, accompanied with oppression of the prse-
cordia, difficulty of breathing, and a most acute lancinating pain in the region
of the right kidney and in the left hypochondrium, and a noise like the clash-
ing of stones one against another was heard when the belly was pressed with
the hand, or when the patient vomited, and this noise still continues. But
what is the most surprising of all, the girl during the whole of her illness had
a plump and rosy appearance.

Our utmost effiDrts were directed towards putting a stop to the generation of
these calculi, and towards dissolving those already formed, by the employment of
various volatile, martiated, remedies; but nothing seemed to make any impression
except spirit of nitre. At the same time various decoctions were injected into the
bladder, to attenuate the before-mentioned mucus, but without effiict; though
anodynes were added to lessen irritation. At length on the 2d and 3 2th of
February 4 oz. of thick and green urine were drawn off by the catheter. She
still continued to vomit 2 or 3 times a-day, whenever a few spoonfuls of broth,
barley-water, or any other liquid food, were given, and along with them a
quantity of calculi equal to -^ an oz. or 6 drachms weight, until the 14th;
from which time until the l6th of June, being an interval of 4 months, she
neither eat nor drank; for as soon as a single spoonful of broth was given, it
was immediately rejected, and along with it some blood, together with a greater
quantity of stones than before; so that in order to prevent these sufferings, we
were now obliged to desist altogether from offering her either meat or drink.
In this state the patient continued for 4 months, abstaining from liquid or solid
food, and taking no other medicine besides a small spoonful of oil of sweet al-
monds, mixed with spirit of nitre, every 5th or 6th day. This was found to
be the best solvent, and was more acceptable to the patient than any other re-
medy; she took in the whole between Q and 10 oz. of it during the above-
mentioned time. The bowels still remained costive; all the clysters that were
administered were still brought away by vomiting, accompanied with stones,
varying in colour (being white, red, and grey) as well as in solidity, roughness,
and smoothness of surface, and internal structure. Some were covered with
blood, others with mucus. The dysury was still urgent; and although the ca-
theter was introduced every 3d day, not more than 2 or 3 oz. of slimy

. PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 513

green urine could be drawn off at a time, and that notoftener than every lOth or
12th day; * for the only supply of liquid which the patienthadwas from the clysters.
On the 6th of April, 3 oz. of a clear, thin, blue urine were voided, but it was
never afterwards of this colour. On the 17th the urine again appeared greenish,
and was loaded with a large quantity of gravel. The pains afterwards returned
with excruciating violence (especially in the loins) so as to induce delirium,
followed by stupor, laughing, singing, fever, &c. With the intention of pro-
curing evacuations downwards, April 29th, 1 grains of mercurius vitae were
given, and on the 2d of May 3 grains more; but the consequence was 2 vo-
mitings, in which there came away 7 drachms of calculi. To overcome the
obstinate constipation, and also with a view of exciting a ptyalism, 4 oz. of
quicksilver were given on the 8th of May, and on the 10th 6 ounces more;
but it slipped through the intestinal canal without bringing any thing along with
it. In this state the patient continued, without taking any sustenance, until
the 16th of June, when it was determined to clear the intestines by a solution
of sal polychrestum in a large quantity of warm water. Accordingly 6 oz. of
this solution were administered every quarter of an hour, until 3 pints were
swallowed, the patient's mouth being held close after each exhibition, so as to
prevent the liquid from being vomited back. By this method an evacuation
downwards was effected, consisting of a large mass of excessively indurated
faeces, which distended the extremity of the rectum to such a degree as to ex-
cite an apprehension of bursting it. Thus what had been vainly attempted for
the space of 4 months by a great variety of medicines, was at last accomplished
by a simple solution of polychrest salt in common water.-j^ After this the deli-
rium abated, and the appetite returned.

Up to Nov. there was. an evacuation by stool every 5th or 6th day with occa-
sional vomitings, so that calculi were now voided both upwards and downwards,
some of them so large as to weigh 2 drachms or more; and it will easily be
conceived that these rough and sharp- pointed stones could not come away with--
out being accompanied with blood and the most excruciating pain. On the 5th
of Nov. the bowels again became constipated, and all things got worse. The
faeces came away by vomiting, and all hope of recovery vanished. In conse-
quence of the suppression of urine, on the 4th of Feb. of the present year

* From the author's words it would appear,, tliat although the catheter was introduced eveiy 3d
day, yet an evacuation of urine did not take place each timej but when it did, (i. e, every 10th or
12th day) not more than 2 or 3 oz. came away at such times.

, + The author's expression is, by water alone (una aqua omnia fontana solvit) ; but just before he
mentions the addition of polychrest salt} the proportion however of the salt to tlie water is not
stated. ;

VOL. II. 3 U

514 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANS ACTIOJSTS. [aNNO 1681,

(168I) the catheter was io^oduced, but no water could then be drawn off; yet
shortly after, to the astonishment of all, the patient voided (with the sufferings
of a woman in labour) 8 pints of feculent greenish urine, but without any
calculus. After this she vomited up (instead of discharging by its natural pas-
sage) 3 or 4 oz. of strong smelling urine every 2nd or 3d day, until the l6th
of May; since which time, by the help of baths and the copious use of water
mixed with spirits of nitre, she this summer is so far recovered as to have a
healthy appearance, and be able to walk about, having a tolerable appetite, and
making every day from 3 to 5 oz. of clear yellowish water, which deposits
some sediment, and is at times slimy and bloody. She has stools but scanty
and hard every 4th day, and she now and then vomits up some calculi, but in
much smaller quantity than before; on the other hand, sharp-pointed stones
are at this time more frequently discharged from the bladder. The belly is still
somewhat tumid, with a painful hardness in the left hypochondrium and in the
right lumbar region, and when handled produces a sound like that of stones
rubbing one against another.

The sudden production of these calculi is, the author remarks, truly surpris-
ing. He thinks that if all the calculi which the patient voided at different
times had been saved and put together, they would have weighed 5ib« He
found some of them to crumble into powder on exposure to the air, and on
the contrary to become harder when put into spirit of wine, or any other liquor,
except an acid. He asks what could be the cause of the vesicular eruption ?
What the nature of that mucus which was contained in the bladder? How the
clysters could pass from one extremity of the intestinal canal to the other (ab
ano ad oesophagum) and be brought away by vomiting, while the colon and
rectum were obstructed with indurated faeces ? What could be the cause of the
green and blue colours of the urine? Why, when the catheter was introduced,
no urine could be drawn off; and yet soon after by an effort of nature, an
amazing quantity was spontaneously evacuated; after which there was again a
suppression of it? In what way the urine could get to the stomach and be dis-
charged by vomiting? Lastly, how the patient could exist so long without meat
or drink ? *

* This is altogether one of the most extraordinary cases of calculous affection upon record. It
cannot be doubted that the calculi which were discharged by the mouth and anus were for the most
part generated in the alimentary canal j for they appear to have differed in colour and quality from
biliary calculi ; neither did the seat of the pain correspond with the situation and direction of the
gall-duct J nor were there any symptoms of jaundice. While the lithic concretions were forming in
the alimentary canal, they were likewise produced in the bladder, and, as the symptoms strongly ma-
nifested, in the right kidney also, if not in both kidneys. Their sudden generation in so many

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 515

.» ■

Telluris Theoria Sacra, Authore T. Burnetio* Lond. 168I, Ato, Philos,

Collect. N° 3, p. 75.

The learned and ingenious author, considering the earth as one of the greater
bodies of the world, has endeavoured in this volume to give an account of its
production, duration, progress, and changes, from physical causes, or the me-
thod of nature in the progress of other beings, and thereby to reconcile what
we find in sacred history concerning it with a rational and philosophic theory,
which was not done as he conceives before now.

n Fosforo overo la Pietra Bolognese preparata per rilucere fra r Ombre, fatica di
Marc Antonio Cellio delV Academia Fisico-mattematica di Roma, 168O.
Philos. Collect. W 3, ^.77.

The principal places near Bononia where the stone is to be found are, 1 . At
Pradalbino. 2. In a small brook near the village Roncania; in which is found
great quantity also of a white stone, like sal ammoniac; also another kind of
ferruginous stone, which yields a vitriolate and stiptic efflorescence. 3. At
Monte Patemo, which is most noted of all for these stones, especially of sucb
as are easiest to be prepared.

It is commonly reported to have been found out by a shoemaker of Bologna,
called Vincenzo Casciareto, ingenious, and a lover of chemistry, who trying to
get gold out of it, by chance observed this shining quality in its calx, without
any other addition of lime, sulphur, talc, antimony, or any other substance.

It has no certain figure, but some are round, others cylindrical, others lenti-

parts of the body, and that not till after the disappearance of the vesicular eruption, is, as indeed Dr.
Konig himself has hinted, a most remarkable circumstance ; and serves to show how cautious practi-
tioners should be in repelling or suppressing some kinds of cutaneous affections. — It will be seen in
N° 181 and 182 of the Transactions, that two of the calculi, which Dr. Konig's patient discharged
by the intestinal canal, and which were sent to the Royal Society from Berne, were examined by Dr.
Slare, who found them to dissolve, with effervescence, in acids.

♦ Dr. Tho. Burnet was a learned divine, and author of several ingenious works, besides this on
the theory of the earth j which, though containing many uncommon beauties, yet the theory is fan-
ciful, and repugnant to the true principles of philosophy, as was demonstrated by Mr. Keil, and
other authors. The second part of this work appeared in l689i and the whole was afterwards pub-
lished in English. Dr. Burnet was bora at Croft, in Yorkshire, l635, and educated at Clare-hall,
Cambridge. In l685 he was appointed master of the Charter- house; in which situation he had the
merit of opposing King James, who had ordered the governor to admit a papist as a pensioner of the
house. In 1692 he published his Archaeologiae Philosophicae ; in which he took some liberties with
the book of Genesis; which not only stopped his further promotion in the church, but occasioned
his dismission from the office of clerk of the closet. He died at the Charter- house in 1715, at 80
years of age.

3 U2

5l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681.

cular; these last are often the best, as being more shining and transparent.
They are usually as large as an orange; and though Licetus says there never
was any greater than that in Aldrovandus's museum, weighing 2ilb, yet the
author has had them of 5 ib-*

The colour is various, as ash, sky, rusty, yellow, earthy and white; but the
best for this use are sky-coloured and white. When it is prepared, it has in it
an efflorescence, in which lies the greatest part of its virtue of receiving light,
which it does most from the sun, but less degrees from the day, the moon,
.or a flame. Though this light in the dark appears like a coal [gleed], it is not
sufficient to read by, unless applied close to the word : it retains not its light
long, nor its virtue above 5 or 6 years. The best way of seeing it is in a dark
room, after the eye has been there kept for some time, and the stone be brought
in immediately from being exposed to the sun. •

For preparing it, make a cylindrical furnace of iron or copper plates, about
7 inches in diameter, and about 7 inches high. Line the inside of it with
strong lute, that the hollow of it may be about 6 inches over, kept from slip-
ping down by the lower edge of the plate turned in. Make at the top 4
notches, 2^ inches high, and 1-^ inch broad. To this make such another
cylindrical part of the same diameter, but a little higher, making 2 ash holes,
or air holes, opposite to each other at the bottom, large enough to put
in one's hand; line this also as the other with good lute, and make a bot-
tom also of lute to reflect the heat.. Make a cover in the same manner,
and line it with lute; then fit a grate of iron wire, which may sustain the
coals, and freely admit the air; place this between the lower and middle
parts, and lay upon it pieces of lighted charcoal, and upon those some others,
well charred but not lighted. When you have made this bed of charcoal, as
high as the notches, having made powder of some other of these stones beat
in a mortar, and searced, dip the stones to be calcined in good strong aquavita^,
and roll and cover them with that powder, then lay them close together on the
bed of charcoal, and make another bed of the like charcoal over them to the
top of the furnace, which then cover with the round close head. Let the coals
burn till all are consumed, and the remaining stones are cold ; then take them
out, and taking oflT the crust from them, wrap them up in silk, and keep them
in a close box till you use them.

If you would cover any figure with it, beat the crust you took off into a fine

* The so called Bolognian stoue is a sulphate of barytes. There are generally, however, Aggre-
gated with it otlier earthy substancesj besides a portion of iron.

ANNO 1681-2.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 517

powder, and having first wiped over the figure with the white of an egg, sprinkle
upon it this powder, which will shine as the stone.

This sort of furnace is not absolutely necessary, but it is convenient as well
in determining the time, as the degree of heat ; for if too great, it will destroy
the quality; if too little, it will not raise it.

Prattica minerale del Marchese Marco Antonio della Fratta, &c. Ato. Bologna,

1678. N°4, p. 80.

This ingenious author, having practised in the most famous mines of Europe,
in this short treatise teaches how to make pure metals out of the respective
ores.

ji further Prosecution of Experiments with Phosphorus. By Dr» Frederic Slare,
F.R.S. Philos. Collect, N°4,'p.'84.-

To try the elasticity of this shining substance, when brought to a flame, I
made the following experiment. I conveyed a quantity of it into a small bubble
of glass, as large as a nutmeg, but blown very thin in the flame of a lamp, that
it might be the more sensible to the elasticity of the substance expanding into
flame. Then I hermetically sealed up the end of the stem of this glass-bubble,
so that no air, nor any thing else, could escape, without breaking it. Then I
approached the sealed glass to the warmth of the fire, and soon found it kindle
into a flame, and to continue to do so by emitting flames, and as it were filling
up the whole capacity of the glass for some short time; after which it seemed
to be extinguished without breaking the glass, or so much as cracking it.

That I might satisfy myself what this matter so flaming did resolve into, I
made the following experiment. I made another small bubble, with a large
tube for the neck, and left it open at the top to be as a chimney to the fire be-
low it in the ball ; then I made the matter flame as before, by approaching it to
the heat, and found my chimney as well as the upper part of the bubble lined
with a yellowish sulphur, which though thus sublimed was not yet wholly di-
vested of its shining property; but when a little warmed the whole bubble
shone.

To try at what rate it would burn in the open air, I made a piece of it flame
merely by approaching it to the warmth of the fire, and found it burn like a
piece of nitre, but without any explosion, for it only flamed away pretty quick.
I have further observed that it leaves a red tenacious matter on its going out,
not unlike red wax^ and is so sour that it sets the teeth on edge, and dissolves
iron.

518 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 68 1-2,

Exposing a large piece of it that was carefully weighed, it continued a great
while shining before the light was quite extinguished. And examining the
quantity of the liquor it resolved into, I was not a little surprized to find it
thrice its first weight at least. Some that tasted of it called it spirit of sulphur,
others spirit of salt.*

It being now generally agreed, that the fire and flame have their pabulum
out of the air, I was willing to try this matter in vacuo. To effect this, I
placed a considerable lump of this matter under a glass, which I fixed to an
engine for exhausting the air; then presently working the engine, I found it
grow lighter, though a charcoal that was well kindled would be quite extinguish-
ed at the first exhaustion ; and upon the third or fourth draught, which very
well exhausted the glass, it much increased its light, and continued so to shine
with its increased light for a long time; on re-admitting the air, it returns again
to its former dulness. Endeavouring to blow it up to a flame with a pair of
bellows, it seemed to be quite extinguished; as it was a good while before any
light appeared. — All liquors are apt to extinguish this light, when the matter is
plunged into them; nor will it shine or burn though you boil it in the most in-
flammable liquors, even oil of olives, spirit of turpentine, or spirit of wine.

On Roman Urns, and other Antiquities, near York, By Dr. Lister of*Yorh.

Philos. Collect. N°4, p. 87.

Roman urns are found in many places throughout the kingdom; but the
different workmanship of these vessels, their composition, and places where
they were made, have been, T think, but little noticed. Here then are found at
York, in the road or Roman-street without Midselgate, and likewise by the
river side, where the brick kilns now are, urns of three different tempers, viz.
1. Of a bluish grey colour, having a great quantity of coarse sand wrought in
with the clay. 1. Others of the same colour, having either a very fine sand
mixed with it full of mica, or catsilver, or made of clay naturally sandy.
3. Red urns of fine clay, with little or no sand in it. These pots are quite
throughout of a red colour like fine bole. Also many of those red pots are
elegantly adorned with figures in basso relevo, and usually the workman's name,
which I think others have mistaken for that of the persons buried there, on the
bottom or cover; as Januarius and such like; and that very name I have seen
on several red pots, found both here and at Aldborough. These are glazed in-
side and outside with a kind of varnish of a bright coral colour.

The composition of the first sort of pots, first gave me occasion to discover
the places where they were made : the one about the midway between Wilber-

* Phosphorous acid of the new nomenclature.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SlQ

fosse and Barnby on the Moor, 6 miles from York, in the sand-hills, or rising
grounds, where the warren now is. The other Roman pottery on the sand-
hills at Santon, not far from Brig in Lincolnshire. In the first place I have
found broken pieces of urns, slag, and cinders. At the latter place there are
yet remaining some of the very furnaces, whose ruins I take to be some of those
metae or sandy hillocks. It is remarkable, that both the above-mentioned pot-
teries are within less than a mile of the Roman road, or military high-way.

The Roman urns above described differ in these particulars from what pots
are now usually made among us. 1 . That they are not at all glazed with lead,
which perhaps is a modern invention. 2. That a far greater quantity of sand is
used than clay; which thing alone made it worth their while, to bring their
clay to the sand-hills. 3. That they were baked either with more leisure after
long and thorough drying, or enclosed within certain coffins to defend them from
the immoderate contact of the flames: which I am induced to believe, because
there seem to be fragments of such things to be found. It is certain the natural
colour of the clay is not altered by burning : so that both the degrees of heat
and manner of burning might be different. And one of these pot-sherds as I,
have heard, baked over again in our ovens, will become red. As to the two
last kind of urns, it is likely the first of them with their particles of mica in it,
were made of a sandy blue clay, which abounds among the western mountains
of Yorkshire, and particularly at Carleton, not far from Ickley, a Roman station.
The red urns seem to have been their master-piece, wherein they shovved the
greatest art, and seemed to glory most, and to eternize their names on them.
I have seen great varieties of embossed work on them. And lastly, the elegant
manner of glazing is far neater indeed, and more durable than our modern way
of leading, which is apt to crack, both with wet and heat : and at the fire it is
certainly unwholesome, by reason of the fumes lead usually emits, being a quick
vaporable metal. This ancient glazing seems to have been done by the brush or
dipping ; for both inside and outside of the urn are glazed, and that before the
baking. And something of the materials of it seems to be remembered by
Pliny, lib. 36, c. 1 Q. Fictilia ex bitumine inscripta non delentur. The paint-
ing of pots with bitumen is indelible. And again, Tingi solidas ex bitumine
statuas, lib. 35, c. 15, the bitumen he says sinks into the very stones and pots,
which is something more than glazing.

The great plenty of these urns found in many parts of England, seems to
argue them also of English manufacture, but where I cannot guess, unless
wrought at the bole mines, of which clay alone they seem to be made in Cleve-
land, for that the barren tract of land called Blackmoor was well known to the
Romans, the jet rings taken up with these urns sufficiently testify. Now jet

520 . PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN0 1681-2.

and bole are no where that I know of to be found with us in England but in
that tract; being fossils peculiar to those mountains. Of these jet rings some
are plain, and others wrought, but all of them of an extraordinary size, being
at least 3 inches diameter, and yet the inward bore is not above an inch and a
half, which makes them too little for the wrists of any man, as they are much
too large for the fingers ; so that probably they were never worn as armilla or
annuli, bracelets or rings. And since we are upon the subject of plastics, or
the Roman clay-work, we cannot but take notice of the opinion of Cambden ;
who will have the obelisks at Burrow-Brigs in this county, to be artificial,
when in truth they are nothing less, being made of one of the most common
sort of stone, viz. of a coarse rag or milstone-grit; but doubtless the size of the
stone surprized him, either not thinking them portable, or perhaps not any
English rock fit to yield natural stones of that magnitude ; but that they are
Roman monuments I suppose none doubts, because pitched here by a very re-
markable and known Roman station, Isurium.

And then consider what trifles these are, compared with the least obelisks
at Rome. And as to the rocks whence they might be hewn, there are many of
that stone near the. river Nid, and on the forest of Scarsbourg ; and a little
above Ickley, another Roman station, within 1 6 miles of Burrow-Bridge; there is
one solid bed of this very stone, the perpendicular depth of which only will
yield obelisks, at least 30 feet long. And yet at Rudstone, near Burlington in
the Yorkshire woulds, full 40 miles wide of these quarries, is an obelisk of the
very same stone, shape, and magnitude, of these before-mentioned. And it
must be observed that almost all the monuments of the Romans with us were of
this sort of stone.

A Letter of Mr. Anthony Leuwenhoech, dated from Delft, Nov. 4, l68l ;
containing an Account of several new Discoveries made by him this last Summer.
Philos. Collect. N°4, p. 93.

I have formerly written that the skin of the hair of an elk, hart, &c. was
made up of globules, and that I had also examined our own hair, which I then
judged to be composed of globules. I. have, since written that our hair has a
bark like trees, composed of globules, whose irregularity is caused by being
whilst soft squeezed out through the skin. The innermost parts of the hair are
made up of threads. But many supposing hair to be hollow, others to have
marrow like a bone ; made me draw the figure of a hog's bristle, to show that
what hoUowness does sometimes appear in the hair, which some fancy to be
marrow, is nothing but the inward clefts of the hair. For the hair grows not

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 521

like plants, but by protrusion or squeezing outwards from within the skin; for
what was root at first within the skin, becomes the body of the hair when thrust
out. When it is first protruded out of tlie skin it is very soft, but suddenly
drying in the air it becomes harder, first without in its bark, and afterwards
within, whence the bark being first dried will not shrink as the inward part does,
but the inward stringy part shrinking, they necessarily cleave one from another,
sometimes with one and sometimes with many clefts, which makes the appear-
ance of dark lines in the hair ; these are mistaken for the marrow.

I have several times this summer walked into our meadows, in order to ob-
serve the fresh excrements of cows, horses, and other animals, but I could never
yet discover any animals in them : but I found multitudes of these small globules
swimming in a clear liquor, some of which were not above one sixth part, others
not above a 36th part of a blood globule. I have examined also the thick part
of the urine of a mare after she had been hard ridden ; and found that this thick
ash-coloured part of it was caused by a great variety of differing globules, some
as large as those of blood, and composed of 6 others : these first were like a
very close grown bunch of grapes, whence though they were not perfectly
round, yet I call them globules ; amongst these I found some -^ of a blood glo-
bule, and some -^. In cock's dung squeezed out as soon as killed, I found an
exceeding great number of worms like eels, which I found to be the male seed
of the cocks. Then I squeezed out the dung of young hens, but I found only
one animal, ^ part of a blood globule. It was constituted of a transparent
liquor full of globules, -f of a blood globule, these were compounded of 3, 4, 5,
or 6 other globules, also many others of -gV of a blood globule. Young pigeons
dung about a month old pressed out, had in one no animals; in the second, whose
dung was more transparent, were many, so that in the compass of a sand were
100 of an egg shape, -|- of a blood globule, moving swift, the rest of the matter
was like that of hen's dung.

Two Astronomical Observations made by Mr. J. Flamsteed, viz. Occultations of
the BulFs Eye, at Greemvich, Anno l680, with a \6-Jbot Tube. Sept. 4, in
the Morning. Translated from the Latin, Philos. Collect. N° 4, p. QQ
and 100.

h. m. s.

At 3 5 42 the star was immersed at the moon's cusp.

4 8 20 the moon's diameter was 6595 = 32' 54".

4 14 2 the star emerged.

3 5 40 the star seemed to adhere to the bright limb of the moon ; but
after 2 seconds more nothing of it was to be seen. The place of the immersion

VOL. II. 3 X

h.

m.

7

11

7

^9

8

6

8

6

522 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 68 1-2.

was near the most southern of three small spots lying in the middle between
Pal us Maraeotis and Mount Climax.

2. The other Occultation observed Oct. 28^ tlie same Year.

s.
At 7 1 1 52 the diameter of the moon was .... 6/45 = 33' 3g"
46 the star dist. from the bright limb 5895 = 29 24.

9 the star reached the limb.
30 the star disappeared, at the longitude of Palus Miris towards
the north, at its northern extremity.
92 5 it emerged from the obscure limb, at the longitude of Insula
Major, from its northern limit.

u4n Account of some of Dr ElshoWs curious and useful Experiments. Com-
municated in a Letter from Berlin to Mr. T. H. Philos. Collect. N^ 4,
p. 104.

1. An universal balsamation, or conservation of all things, animal, or vegeta-
ble, moist or dry ; especially all sorts of waters and syrups, that they may not
turn and corrupt ; with small or scarcely any cost. — 2. The great vine, and wine-
cure, consisting in the vines and branches melioration, to make them attract or
draw in more of the solar virtue and efficacy ; in the fermentation of the wine, sup-
plying what may be defective, &c. &c. &c. — 3. To prepare drink of water,* not
much unlike wine, and much more wholesome ; the spirit whereof shall be
as good as the best spirit of wine. — 4. To make good vinegar of such a water,
more agreeable and healthful for use than the ordinary wine-vinegar. — 5. A
new invented art of stilling brandy without copper vessels, out of all sorts of
grain, wheat, rye, barley, malt, &c. yielding more spirit, and more wholesome
than the common way, especially in those places where more beer is drank
than wine.

Observations of the Comet of 168O and 1 681, made at the College of Clermont.
By P. J. de Fontaney, e S. J. Professor of Mathematics. Paris, 168I.
Philos. Collect. W 4, p. 106.

This ingenious author has in a short discourse comprised all his observations
and sentiments concerning the comet which appeared in the latter end of the
year 168O, and the beginning of 168I. Concerning the first, which appeared
in November, and was seen in England, France, Germany, Italy, and most

* By adding sugar to it, and subjecting the same to fermentation.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 523

parts of Europe, he has nothing of his own observation, having attempted after
he heard of it to discover it several mornings, but without success : he there-
fore proceeds to the observations of the second, which he first mentions to have
been observed by himself the 17 th of December 1 680. On Dec. 16, in the
evening, he says, the length of its tail was about 70 degrees, its breadth in the
middle about 2, and at the upper end about 3 degrees, full like a rain-bow,
reddish, and a little bended towards the west ; it passed through the Eagle, the
Dart, and the left wing of the Swan, covering the southern star in the neck of
the Eagle. The 17th about 5 in the evening he discovered the head, of the
size of a star of the first magnitude, among those of Antinous. He now
viewed the head with a l^-foot telescope, and saw it differing both from stars
and planets, being a dusky light like a cloud, about the size of the moon, and
brighter in the middle than the extremes. From which he draws these con-
sequences ; first, that its blaze was transparent : Secondly, that the head is not
made up of small fixed stars, as Stellas Nebulosae are. Thirdly, that he sees no
reason to conclude it a planet, because sometimes no nucleus, sometimes many,
are seen, which sometimes divide, sometimes unite.

Upon the whole he concludes, that the blaze or tail is made by the rays of
the sun passing through the head, which he conceives a clear solution of the
constant opposition of the blaze to the sun. 2. That these rays are received
and reflected to us by a matter more dense than the aether. 3. That the head
of the comet is not a star, they being too dense, but this thin enough to trans-
mit rays of the sun. 4. That yet the matter of the head reflects the rays, and
may be of the same nature with the blaze. 5. That the head is more dense
than the blaze for the most part, though sometimes otherwise, and that it is
liot necessary it should be round. 6. That it is not enough that the matter of
the head be transparent, but it must give a greater power to the rays trajected to
enlighten the parts behind it, since it is not observable that the parts before or
round about it are so well enlightened. 7- That there are divers convex parts
in the head, which make this conic union of the rays behind them, which make
the brighter parts of the blaze. 8. That to form a comet, there is only ne-
cessary a union of some denser parts of the other formed into convexities, and
these disposed into a convenient order; which he believes may as well be sup-
posed to be naturally effected by these celestial clouds, as the figure and posture
of the clouds; which make a parhelion or mock sun, is naturally produced in the
atmosphere : so that in fine he concludes, that as a mock sun is nothing but a
sublunary meteor, fitly formed and disposed to represent the figure of the sun;
so a comet is nothing else but a celestial meteor, whose convex parts of con^
densed matter reflect the beams of the sun sufficient to make the appearance

3x2

524 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 681-2.

of the star or head, and transmit others which make the appearance of the tail
or blaze.

u4n Account of a Treatise concerning the late Comet, Published at Turin l681,
By l)onato Rossetti, S. T. D. Canon of Leghorn, and now Reader of Philoso-
phy in the University of Pisa, and Tutor in Mathematics to the Duke of
Savoy. Philos. Collect. N°4, p. 114.

In this treatise is found little of observation on this comet, but only on ac-
count of the ingenious author Dr. Rossetti's own thoughts and theory, con-
cerning the various phaenomena of comets in general. He conceives then that
all the comets that have ever yet appeared, have been de novo generated, and
again dispersed in the elementary regions about the earth. And notwithstand-
ing all that has been alleged by other authors to prove them to be in much
higher regions, from their little or no parallax, he pretends to show that their
arguments are not sufficient either to prove that comets are above or beyond
the mooUj or to determine the distances of the planets, by reason that the re-
fractions that the rays from each of them suffer, in passing through the atmos-
phere, cause so great an irregularity, that tables sufficiently exact cannot be
made of the planets themselves, and therefore much less of the comets which
have not been yet brought to a theory.

An Explication of the Comet which appeared at the end of 168O, and in the begin-
ning of 168I ; with a Table ivhich shows when it began to appear, and when it
should cease or disappear, together with the daily Motion of it, as to Longitude
and Latitude. Dijon, Jan. 8, 168I, on the Observations of Dr. Anthelme,
Carthusian of Dijon. Philos. Collect. N°4, p. II6.

The contents of this tract were to show a specimen of predicting the future
course of the comet, from some of the first observations of it, which has been
attempted by several, and upon very different hypotheses. The hypothesis on
which the author founded his calculation, is, that comets are bodies as old as the
creation, and have motions as regular as the planets ; and that the reason why
they are but seldom seen is, that they move in vast orbs very eccentrical to the
earth, and are only visible in that part of the orb that approaches the earthy
which has so little curvature that it may be accounted almost a straight line, as
Kepler and some other eminent astronomers have supposed. That the bodies
of them are transparent, and transmit the sun's beams, which makes the blaze
or tail, which he supposes always opposite to the sun. He conceives them to
have no significancy as to mutations on the earth, as of war, sickness, famine,
death of great men, or the like.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 525

There is newly published a large and very elaborate Treatise of Dr» Olaus Rud-
beckj Professor of Anatomy and History ^ at Upsal in Sweden ; comprised in
two Volumes ; the one containing the Discourse itself written both in the Latin
and Sivedish Tongues \ the other, the Maps and Descriptions referred to in the
Discourse, Philos. Collect. N° 4, p. 118.

Olai Rudbeckii Atlantica, sive Manheim, &c.

This deservedly famous author has here undertaken a great work, and much
to the honour of his country, to set forth the rise and progress of the kingdom
of Sweden, from Japhet the first king and possessor thereof in the times nearest
the flood, to Charles now at present reigning, of which the chronological tables
by him calculated give a short view. His helps herein have been, histories of
all sorts, ancient and modern, foreign and domestic ; the ancient poets, and
principally of Sweden, traditions which have so much greater authority, by the
language having been always the same, and the land never conquered by in-
vasion ; runic inscriptions, and monuments of greater age, and in greater quan-
tities than are to be found any where else.

An Account of some considerable Observations made at Ballasore in India, serving
to find tJie Longitude of that Place, and rectifying very great Errors in some
famous Modern Geographers. Communicated by Mr. Edmund Halley, F.R,S.
Philos. Collect. N° 5, p. 124.

Anno 1080, Oct. 28, old stile, the moon applied to the Bull's eye; which
star was observed to be eclipsed at Greenwich by Mr. Flamsteed, and at London
in Basinghall- street, by Mr. Haines, and myself; the Greenwich observation is
in the last of these tracts : at London we noted the immersion at 8h. 6m. 00s.
and that the star was newly emerged at gh. 2m. 52s. ; the just consent of our
two observations leave no room to suspect their nearness to truth. This ap-
pulse I procured to be observed in India by Mr. Benjamin Harry, master of the
ship Berkly Castle, and a very able artist, who upon his return gave me this
and some other very accurate observations. Riding at anchor in Ballasore road,
in the latitude of 21*^ 20' north, and about 20 miles E.S.E. from the town, he
observed that the star was not eclipsed, but the moon passed to the northward
about 24 or 25 minutes, and by his pendulum watch, rectified by altitudes and
the rising and setting of the sun, he noted that precisely at ]6h. 00m. the
Bull's Eye was in equal altitude with the moon's centre, that at l6h. 30m. the
star was in equal altitude with the lower limb of the moon, and at 17h. 12m.
the occidental limb of the moon was in a right line with the Bull's Eye and

526 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 68 1-2.

Capella. Now taking these observations under the examination of a calculus, I
find that at 8h. 6m. or the immersion at London, the true place of the moon
correct by parallax was Gemini 4° 32' 24''; but at l6h. 00m. at Ballasore road,
the true place of the moon was Gemini 5** 54', that is 1° 2l' 36" more than at
8h. 6m. at London: now according to the moon's velocity at that time, she
passed an arch of 1° 2l' 36" in 2h. 8m. 40s. of time, so then at loh. 14m. 40s.
at London, the moon was in the same place as at l6h. OOm. at Ballasore road;
whence the difference of longitude will be 5h. 45 m. 20s. or 86° 20', Ballasore
being so much to the eastward of London.

The same person, in the same ship and place, observed another application of
the moon to the same star, on the 23d of December following, in the morning.
This was an occultation to most parts of Europe, and was observed at Dantzic
by Mr. Hevelius, and at Avignon by Mr. Gallet : the former makes the correct
time of the immersion, December 22d, 7h. 46m. 12s. the emersion at 8h. 54m.
The latter, the immersion at 6h. 18m. 22s. the emersion at 7h. IQm. 46s.
This, as the other, was no eclipse in India, the moon passing to the northward,
and by the observation of Mr. Harry, the Bull's Eye and the moon's under-limb
were in equal altitude when they were both 13° 45' high to the west, which gives
the time 14h. 49m.; and when the south horn of Taurus was 23° 30' high,
which makes the time 15h. 13m. the western limb of the moon was in a line
with Capella and the Bull's Eye. Now by calculation I find, that at 14 h. 49m.
at Ballasore the moon's true place was Gemini 6° 30'30^', and at 7h. 46m. 12s.
at Dantzic, the true place was Gemini 4° 55' 1 1'', that is 1° 35' 20'^ short of the
place deduced from the observation at Ballasore road, which make in time 2h.
32 m. 40s: whence it follows, that 1 Oh. 18 m. 52s. at Dantzic, makes 14 h. 49m.
at Ballasore road, and the difference of longitude 4h. 30 m. 8s.; and Dantzic
being by many and undoubted observations proved to be 1 h. 15 m. 30s. more
easterly than London, Ballasore road will be from London 5h. 45 m. 38 s. or
86° 24': and the same difference of meridians will be found 86° 14' if we make
use of the emersion at Dantzic. As for the Avignon observation I leave it for
those that please to try it, but I dare engage they shall find nearly the same
result. N, B. Avignon is Oh. 19 m. 40 s. or 4° 50', to the eastward of London.

For further confirmation hereof, being on shore at Ballasore town, he observed
with very great care and exactness, Nov. 18, the same year, that at 9h. 13 m.
the star which Tycho calls, in Cotyla dextra Aquarii duarum prascedens, (and
which was then in Aquarius 28° 52', and lat. 2° 46' north), was in a right line
with the cusps of the moon, then near the first quarter. The star's place is
confirmed by the agreement of Hevelius's observations with those of Tycho,
and the theory of the moon cannot be considerably faulty in that part of her orb.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 527

it falling precisely on her greatest equation, wherefore by the theory and num-
bers of Horrox, the true place of the moon at 2h. 53m. at London, is found
Aquarius 29° 22' 10'': but at ph. 13m. at Ballasore, her place was in Aquarius
29° 41' 17" ; that is 19' 7" more than at London, which in time gives 36m.:
so that 3h. 29m. at London, was 9h. 13m. at Ballasore, and the difference of
longitude 5h. 44m. or 86'' OO' precisely; which the Dutch maps make full out
99°. And the French maps of Sanson, pretending to correct them, have made
them 5 degrees worse, and the error 18 degrees completely.

An Idea of Mathematics, written to S. H [Samuel Hartlib.~\ By Dr. John
Pell.* Translated from the Latin. Philos. Collect. N° 5, p. 127.

Concerning what I formerly wrote and explained to you, on the improvement
of the mathematical sciences, the amount is chiefly as follows : — ^When men are
without inclination, genius, assistance, and leisure requisite for these studies,
it is no wonder if they make but little progress in them. But it seems to me,
that by help of the following means, a tolerably good remedy may be provided
for this evil. Namely, if,

L 1. There be composed a Mathematical Monitor, as it might be called,
which may contain proper answers to these three questions : 1st, What advan-
tages may be expected from the study of the mathematics ? 2d, What helps are

* John Pell, D. D. and F. R. S. an eminent mathematician of the 17th century, was bom at
Southwake in Sussex, 161O, and educated at Cambridge, In l628 he drew up the " Description
and Use of the Quadrant, written for a friend, in two books," tlie original M S. of which is extant
among his papers in the Royal Society, &c. ; the same year he held a correspondence with Mr, Briggs
on the subject of logarithms. In 1643 he went to Amsterdam, where he was appointed professor of
mathematics; and in l646 the prince of Orange sent for him, to be professor of philosophy and ma-
thematics at Breda, In \6o2 he returned to England, and in l654 was sent by the protector Crom-
well, as agent to the protestant cantons of Switzerland. In his negociations abroad it seems he was
not unmindful of tlie interests of Charles II, by whom he was afterwards promoted to the living of
Fobbing, in Essex. Assisted by Sancroft, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, he brought the re-
formed calendar into tlie upper house of convocation. He was declared a fellow of the Royal Society
in l66'3. Dr. Pell was author of a great many writings in mathematics, on algebra, geometry,
astronomy, &C.3 he made great alterations and additions to Rhonius's algebra, translated by Mr.
Branker; and it seems he introduced into tliat science the method of registering the steps in the
margin, in the reduction of equations; he demonstrated the 2d and 10th books of Euclid, also some
parts of Archimedes, and the greatest part of Diophantus's 6 books on arithmetic ; he had thoughts
also of publishing an edition of Apollonius. But few, however, of Dr. Pell's writings have been
published; many of them were left in the library of Lord Brereton, at Brereton in Cheshire, and
many others were placed in the house of the Royal Society by Dr. Birch in 1755, who has given a
pretty full account of his life, in the History of the Royal Society, vol. 4, p. 444. Dr. Pell died in
great distress in l685, in the 76th year of his age.

528 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 68 1-2.

now extant for attaining that knowledge? 3d, What order is to be employed in
using those helps? Therefore this monitor should contain as follows:

I. A clear and easy discourse on the limits or extent of the mathematical arts,
and of the benefits that may accrue, not only to those who study them, but also
to the nation to which they belong. 2. A catalogue of mathematicians, and of
their works; which may exhibit, 1st, A synopsis of all kinds of mathematical
books, both in print and in libraries in MS. proper numbers of reference being
affixed to every kind. 2d, A chronological catalogue of all celebrated mathe-
maticians, according to the order of the years in which they flourished, with
the dates of their works. 3d, A catalogue of the same works, according to the
order of the years in which they were printed in any language ; adding also the
names of all the mathematical books published that year, in any country or any
language : exhibiting the form and the quantity of each volume ; placing the
year before the title, and after the title the year in which it was last printed, with
the number referring to the synopsis given in the first page of the catalogue.

3. An advice to the studious, concerning the best books of every kind; in
what order and method to be read, what parts to be selected, what to be omitted,
and how to retain every thing in memory.

4. An exhortation to all persons of wealth, leisure, and genius, for the pur-
suit of these studies: that having regard to the great benefits derived from hence,
both to themselves and others ; as well as to the pure and sincere pleasure arising
from the search of hidden truths, and the solution of difficult problems ; that
they may seriously apply themselves to the advancement of science; and the
rather as more expeditious methods are now discovered than were formerly
known, by the saving of much labour, time, and expence. Then an exhorta-
tion to all such as are distinguished for setting a right value on these studies, as
well for power as wealth, that they may become patrons to such ingenious men,
by proposing handsome rewards, to encourage them to complete their useful dis-
coveries. Lastly, to all princes and people, who may procure great benefit to
their estates, by giving the utmost encouragement to the cultivators of such arts.

For this end it will be very proper,

II. That a public library be founded, furnished with all the books above-
mentioned, and with one instrument of every kind yet invented; having also
an endowment sufficient for the purchase of all mathematical books as they are
annually published, and for the maintenance of a librarian; whose duty it
may be, to read over all the books published in his own country, suppressing
such as are useless or erroneous, and admonishing authors not to publish only
such things as are already known and treated of by others : that he also show his
approbation of useful inventions, and recommend the inventors to proper patrons:

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 52$

that he receive, to enter in his catalogue, and dispose in the proper repositories,
one copy of the books so read over, when presented to tlie library, well bound,
at the charge of the author or bookseller: that he give a civil and ready answer
to any studious persons, who may consult him about any problem, whether it be
already solved or not, that they may neither mispend their time on what has
been already done, nor be deterred from prosecuting inventions or new disco-
veries: that he receive, &c. as abov^e, all manuscripts that may be presented or
bequeathed to the library: that he keep up a constant literary correspondence
with learned foreigners of this kind, that he may not be ignorant of what books
are published in other countries : that he observe, among his countrymen, who
are the best cultivators of these arts: that he cultivate an acquaintance with all
such artists as excel in constructing mathematical contrivances and instruments
of all kinds : that, after a fair trial he give his testimony, both on speculative
knowledge and practical dexterity, to practical men of all kinds, that such as*
have occasion for this kind of men may not be imposed on by ignorant pre-
tenders.

The catalogue will readily inform, among the vast multitude of books in the
world, which they are that belong only to this kind of study. The library will
exhibit a copy of every such book, and inform us where more copies may be had.
It will be also a kind of storehouse, both to natives and foreigners, whence they
may readily learn what helps that country can supply to these studies.

Such then, in my opinion, is the readiest way of using the advantages we are
already possessed of. If more be wanting, it may be proper, by the aid of
skilful artists,

III. That the three following new works be composed and published.

1 . Mathematical Pandects, containing, as clearly, methodically, concisely, and
ingeniously, as it can be done, whatever may be collected, or deduced by way of
corollary, from mathematical books and discoveries made before our time ; quot-
ing the most ancient authors in which they are found, and noting in all follow-
ing authors where they have pilfered from others without acknowledgment; or,
which is worse, have arrogated to themselves the inventions of others. By this
means, that large library would be contracted into a much narrower compass,
to the great saving of labour, time, and expence, for those that come after.

2. A Mathematical Compendium, containing, in a concise manual, all the
most useful tables, with precepts to show their application to the solution of
problems, either of pure mathematics, or applied to other subjects. Finally,
that we may not be always confined to books in this kind of learning, there
should be contrived,

3. The Self-sufficient Mathematician, or an instruction to show how any ma-
voL. II. 3 Y

530 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l68l-2.

thematician, not averse to labour, may acquire so much skill, that without the
aid of books or instruments he may accomplish the solution of any mathemati-
cal problem, and that as easily as another by only turning over books.

This then is that idea of the mathematics which, in my manner, I have long
since figured to myself; being always firmly persuaded, that then only we can
hope for success in great undertakings, when we have conceived an exact idea
of them in our minds, and of the fittest means of putting them in execution.
And if we cannot express this idea completely, yet it is something to come as
near as may be. I conceive this is so far from being above the human powers,
that I think it may be accomplished by the industry of one man alone, who is
not prevented by the multitude of other concerns. For it is manifest that the
Library and Catalogue may easily be procured, if money be not wanting. And
as to the Pandects, if the task of composing them were committed to me, I
should impose on myself much severer conditions than those above mentioned.
For first I would delineate the infallible process of human reason in the investi-
gation of whatever it proposes to itself ; showing how it proceeds from the first
rudiments or principles, by an uninterrupted chain, to the highest as well as
the lowest application of them. An art which men would not perhaps be long
without, if they were but carefully to examine, by what means such ideas have
arisen in the minds of certain men whom they admire, and how such apt means
have been discovered for attaining that end. How these pandects may be abridged
into a manual, such as may be fit for common use, cannot be difficult to under-
stand. But so to fix them in mind, that there shall be no further need of books,
which is the thing aimed at in our self-sufficient mathematician, may be thought
by most to exceed the power of the human mind. Yet I think men will abate
of their doubts on this head, when they carefully consider what arts have been
devised for strengthening the imagination, for assisting the memory, and for
directing the reasoning faculty, as well as what wonderful effects may be pro-
duced by the united and constant exercise of these faculties.

The foregoing Idea considered and objected to, Oct. 1639. By P. Mersenne.*

Philos. Collect. N°5, p. 135.

Instead of all that apparatus which the author of the idea proposes, about

• Marin Mersenne, a celebrated philosopher and mathematician of the I7th century, was bom
1588, at Oysc in Maine. He Was fellow student with Descartes at la Fleche, where they contracted
a friendship that lasted through life. Going afterwards to Paris, he studied theology in the Sorbonne,
and entered in the order of the Minims. He was teacher of theology in the convent of Nevers,
from 1615 to 1619, and became afterwards superior of that convent. Wishing hovv^ever to be more
at liberty for philosophical studies, he resigned all the offices of his order, and travelled into Italy,

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS^ 031

collecting the various writings of mathematicians, it seems to me more advise-
able to select only the best and most deserving of them. Beginning first with
those ancient authors whose works are still in being; as Euclid, Apollonius,
Archimedes, Theodosius, Pappus, Ptolemy, with their other fragments and
manuscripts which have not yet seen the light ; some of which are in the cus-
tody of Golius at Leyden, and some are preserved at Rome. Then to these
might be added the more modern, as Victa for algebra, Clavius's 3 volumes,
Herigon in 5 volumes. In like manner, among the opticians, should be chosen
Vitellio, Kepler, Aquilon, De Villes. Among arithmeticians, after Diophantus,
the best are Cardan, Tartaglea, and your countryman Nepair. For spherical
triangles, and their computation by logarithms, you have Briggs, Gordan, Pi*
tiscus, Snell, and our Morinus. For astronomical matters, after Ptolomy
and some Arabians, those should be procured who have composed tables ; as
Alphonsus, John Regiomontanus, Kepler, and our Duret. And, in short, for
fortification and music, eight or ten authors might be selected, who have most
excelled in the practice. In like manner, for mechanical subjects, forces of mo-
tion, machines, and water- works, about 10 or 12 authors might be abridged,
for such as are curious in those matters. And if 12 men of good judgment,
having a friendly correspondence with each other, would undertake this business,
so that each of them might compose a treatise on a science, in one clear and
convenient volume ; such things being supplied as are wanting in others, and
unnecessary things being omitted; we might doubtless have in 12 volumes, in
a short and nervous manner, all that could be desired in this matter. And in
my opinion, whatever belongs to mathematics, either pure or mixed, might be
comprehended in those 12 volumes. So likewise we might give all the neater
parts of philosophy in three books; and all the liberal arts, or the mechanic
arts, in three more; so that learning might be obtained at a small expence.
And as to mathematical instruments, it would be of little consequence to have
an apparatus consisting of all that have hitherto been invented. It might be
sufficient to have four or five of the best of their kind, and those of the most
convenient and useful sorts.

Germany, and the Netherlands, where he was greatly respected. He afterwards settled at Paris,
where he died l648^ at 60 years of age. — Father Mersenne was of a humble disposition, mild,
peaceable, virtuous, and of engaging manners. In mathematics and philosophy he presided long as
the principal judge and controller. He was author of many excellent works ; the principal of which
are, 1. Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim, l623, fol. 2. Traite de I'Harmonie universelle, 1636
and 1637, 2 tom. fol. 3. Cogitata Physico-Mathematica, l644, &c. 2 vols, 4to. j being an excellent
work, consisting of a compendious body of mathematics, ancient and modern, historical and theo-
retical. 4. La Verite des Sciences, in 12mo. 5. Les Questions inouies, in 4to. 6. L'Optique et
la Catoptrique, in Niceron's perspective, &c.

3 Y 2

532 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1681-2.

j

Answer to the foregoing Observations. By Dr. Pell. An. 1639. Dec. 2. Ibid.

p. 137.
If 1 understand you right, learned Sir, you approve of all I have said, except
that you think I require a larger apparatus than is necessary. It is your opinion,
that not all the mathematical books and instruments should be collected, which
I contend for, but the best of them only be selected. This opinion I should
not oppose, if it were generally agreed on, among such a multitude of authors,
which are the best, or which should have the preference before all others ; and
if I had this only in view, that something of labour and expence might be saved
to the studious in these arts. But since it was my object to obtain the most
perfect foundation for the whole scope of the mathematics, I ought not to de-
lineate any other scheme than that might completely answer such a design. The
principal part, I apprehend, of a project must consist in such a universal library
as I have described. That being the case, I ought not to despise any attempt,
much less to condemn any one unexamined, that may throw in his mite, and
endeavour to promote this undertaking. And if I may give my judgment, the
most trivial writing, or mathematical instrument, ought to be preserved, one
copy at least, even for its errors, in some certain accessible place in every coun-
try. For we perceive many things that have been ingeniously invented, in the
ruder instruments of former ages, that are now not only worthy of observing,
but even of being imitated ; as some writers of a lower class may give very good
hints, and assist the invention of those of a happier genius ; for we can often
point at an excellence, which we cannot arrive at ourselves. We perceive many
lemmata that have been well demonstrated by this kind of writers; yet, because
of some one fundamental fallacy, their whole superstructure has come to the
ground. If you think that many ought to be rejected, as well for their trifling
and verbosity, as for error and false conclusions; you should consider how dif-
ferent are the notions and taste of mankind, and without estimating the judg-
ment of others by the measure of your own sagacity. For there are some per-
sons who can understand nothing, unless repeated to them a hundred times,
and that almost in the same words : so that those tautologies are well adapted
to such persons. And because we must always begin with the more knowii
things; and the same things being not equally known to all; we must therefore
make very different beginnings. So that you can scarcely find one learner, but
he may be assisted by a rude instrument, or an unskilful author : hence then
he wh"o undertakes the office of a mathematical monitor, ought not to be un-
acquainted even with these. So that the complete collection of books, before-
mentioned, seems to me to be quite necessary.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 533

Now the less I am pleased with these minute mathematicians, the more I
should wish for a library of this kind, as being the only method of curing that
licentious itch of scribbling. For these prating pretenders, ever trifling in a
childish manner, while they would seem to accommodate themselves to the
capacity of youth, may see that there are already too many who have compiled
rudiments of this kind. And those who fondly aim at advancing the mathema-
tical sciences by an infinity of new discoveries, when they see so many empty
paradoxes, which have been condemned and ridiculed by the public, may take
warning by the miscarriages of others. But especially the plagiaries, those
pests of all true literature, will not have the impudence to vend, as their own,
any old books, or any part of them, which perhaps have not been printed more
than once. On the other hand, men of candour and ingenuity, capable of de-
livering their thoughts in a handsome manner, when they see so many have
gone before them, on almost every subject, will be cautious not to produce any
thing to the public, but what is new and their own invention. Now what has
been treated of already may be easily known, either by consulting such an ample
library, or, with less trouble, they may be informed by the librarian himself, to
whose custody it has been committed. And these are the reasons in general,
which I cannot retract, why I prefer such an universal library as is described above.

P. Mersennes Answer, declaring his Satisfaction. Dec. ]0, 1639. Ibid. p. 143.

I had no sooner read your letter, learned Sir, than I became wholly yours,
and was ready to subscribe to your opinion, which I entirely approve. I was
also impelled by an unusual ardor of mind; so that I would recommend this
great project of yours to the potentates of the earth, if I had access to them.
But where is the king that will make a beginning? For I cannot but call it
truly royal work.

M. Descartes^ Judgment and Approbation of the same. Feb.lQAO. Ibid. p. 144.

I inspected the mathematical idea only by the bye ; and now only recollect,
that I found nothing in it that I should dissent from ; and I much approved
both the catalogue of the mathematical apparatus as there exhibited, and the
self-sufficient mathematician there described, as containing every thing in him-
self. Nearly in the same sense I am accustomed to distinguish two things in
the mathematics, the History and the Science. By the history I mean whatever
is already discovered, and is committed to books. And by the science, the skill
of resolving all questions, and thence of investigating by our own industry
whatever may be discovered in that science by human ingenuity. He who pos-

534 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 68 1-2.

sesses this faculty, has but httle need of other assistance, and may therefore be
properly called self-sufficient. Now it is much to be wished, that this mathe-
matical history, which lies scattered through many volumes, and is not yet intire
and complete, were to be all collected into one book. And for this purpose,
there would be no occasion to be at the charge of seeking or purchasing many
books. For, since authors transcribe many things from one another, whatever
is extant may be somewhere found, in any library that is but moderately fur-
nished. Nor is diligence in collecting all things so necessary, as judgment to
reject what is superfluous, and knowledge to supply such things as are not yet
discovered. Now if such a book were at hand, from thence any one might
learn the whole mathematical history, and a good part of the science also. But
if any one should desire to have the whole that belongs to the practice, as in-
struments, machines, engines, &c. were he a king, and had the wealth of the
whole world at command, he could not supply the necessary expences. Neither
indeed is there any occasion for it: it is sufficient if he can describe them all,
and that he either knows how to make for himself such as are wanted, or can
direct artificers to construct them.

An Account of the Dissection of an Ostrich.* By Edward Brown, F. R, S.
and of the College of Physicians. Philos. Collect. N° 5, p. 147.

The ostrich is esteemed the largest and tallest of winged or feathered fowl,
being sometimes 8 feet high, which bulk if we compare with the tominejo or
humming-bird, weighing about 12 grains, we may readily discern within what
compass and latitude the creation of birds was ordained.

On the top of his head there is a flat oval place, a nail in length, which is
all callous, and without any hair or feathers, like the callous part of his breast,
but not so thick, to preserve the brain from the serenes that fall in hot coun-
tries, and other injuries of the air, especially in the night, and the more con-
siderably if he sleeps with his head upright, and not under his wing.

The gula is very large as well as long ; the os hyoides stretches itself down
on each side of the neck, the length of 5 or 6 inches.

Besides the many muscles in the neck for the motion of the numerous ver-
tebrae and the head, there are two most elegant muscles which come from
within the thorax, arising within the chest about the second rib, which insert
themselves on each side of the aspera arteria ; these I may name directores
asperse arteriee. At the first dividing of the aspera arteria, or its divarication

* Other accounts of the anatomical peculiarities observed in the dissection of the ostrich are given
in the 33d, 34th, and 36th vols, of the Philosophical Transactions.

/

PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIOR^. 535

on each side of the kings there is a ring larger and stronger than any other ring
of the windpipe. There are divers glands in the neck near the gula; these an
ash-colour ; and there are two most beautiful glands sticking to the carotid ar-
teries as they come out of the breast, one on each side, these are bluish. The
peritonaeum doubles, and encompasses the stomach loosely. He has 7 ribs,
and the intercostal muscles are broad, plain, and beautiful. He has no promi-
nent breast-bone, like other fowls, nor a narrow chest like many quadrupeds,
but a broad breast, and a large firm sternum, of the shape of a shield, broader
than the sternum of a man; and indeed when he puts down his head, and bends
his neck round to come in at a door, his breast is so broad, and his tread so
different, that it is not at all like the entrance of a fowl, but wonderfully like
that of a camel, but with this advantage, that the ostrich bearing his weight
upon 2 legs only, his entrance is more bold and graceful. This was a young
male ostrich, and had the penis about an inch long, with a small cartilaginous
substance in it. The testes lie very high near the kidneys and back-bone, and
were very small and slender, of a yellow colour. The ear is round, and the
orifice will receive one's finger ; the eye is large and bluish, almost as large as a
man's.

The rimula of the larynx is long, and the cartilages about it strong, but no
epiglottis, or likeness to a human larynx, although they that heard its voice,
compare it to the crying or shrieking of a hoarse child, but more mournful and
dismal ; which confirms the account given by Mr. Sandys in his travels, that
there are a great number of ostriches in the desarts, which keep in flocks, and
often frighten strangers and passengers with their fearful screeches. The lungs
are of fine florid colours, but small in proportion to the vast aspera arteria, they
stick close to the back, and are perforated like other birds; but on blowing into
the windpipe with a pair of bellows, we could not make them rise or fill. The
heart has 2 ventricles about the size of a man's heart, but the right ventricle is
much thinner, and the valves are more fieshy. There are 2 stomachs, as in
granivorous fowls, a crop, and a gizzard ; but the crop or first stomach differs
much from that of other fowls, in that it is not placed without the breast as
with them, but within the sternum, and is not round, but longer like a bag,
and of a vast size, lying lengthwise in the body. But what was most satisfac-
tory of all in this dissection was, the glands found in the coats of this stomach, a
row of them on the back part of it, reaching almost from one end to the other,
about 1000 of them, about 10 in breadth and 100 in length. These lie be-
tween the coats of the stomach, and every particular gland discharges itself by a
peculiar orifice, through the inner coat of the stomach into its cavity; we found
some of these glands round and globular, some oval, and some more fiat, of

5^6 . PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 168J-2.

an irregular figure, those which lie highest are roundest and thickest, those
which lie more towards the bottom of the stomach, or where it unites with the
gizzard, are more broad and flat. These bring in a juice which helps to digest
that various nourishment which this fowl makes use of. The gizzard was very
large, the inner coat not adhering so firmly as in other fowls, and was very thick
like flannel, and on our first looking into the gizzard from the first stomach, it
appeared as a piece of flannel or napkin, which the ostrich had swallowed, and
so stuck there. The passage out of the gizzard into the small guts is very
strait. The guts are about 20 yards in length ; the smaller guts, beginning
from the stomach, are 10 yards long; and the larger guts, down from thence
to the anus, are near as much. At the beginning of the great guts there are
2 intestina caeca, each of them a yard long, and they have a screw or spiral
valve within them, after the manner of the caecum of a rabbit; this screw in
both the intestina winds about 20 turns; the extremity of the caecum is small,
not much differing from the cpp.rum of a man. The excrement which is thrown
out by the guts is of 2 kinds, a white thin sticking excrement, which it mutes
like a hawk, and after that another sort of excrement comes, which is very like
to that of a sheep, but larger. The mesentery, although it holds together
such a number of guts great and small, yet it is not thick, but is only a trans-
parent membrane, as generally in pennates, but it is very large, and in some
places above 13 inches deep or broad, measuring from the centre to the guts.
The liver has 4 lobes, and is of a colour not much diflferent from that of a
man's ; we could find no gall-bladder.

There was a gland under the stomach which might seem to be a spleen ; but
pennata and insecta are said to have no spleens. The pancreas was slender, and
above a foot long.

The kidneys are large, and of the length of my hand as they lie both toge-
ther, they are of the shape of a guitar. The ureters are firm, strong, white,
and long. Behind the kidneys lie 2 glands, somewhat oval, of about an inch
and a half in length, close to the back-bone.

^n Account of several curious Discoveries about the Internal Texture of the Flesh
of Muscles, of strange Motions in the Fins, and the Manner of the Produc-
tion of the Shells of Oysters, &c. By Mr. Leuwenhoeck, F. R. S. Philos.
Collect. N*^ 5, p. J 52.

Formerly I have stated, that musculous flesh, viewed with an ordinary mi-
croscope, I conceived them to be composed of globules, for so they seemed to
appear to me. But with the use of better helps and more diligent inquiry, I

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 53/

now find that they are not globules but rimples. For on examining beef mus-
cles, I found them to be made up of small strings lying close joined together
one by another ; which were so small that 50 of them, laid one by another, would
not make the breadth of the 22d part of an inch, and if supposed a 20th,
leaving 2 for the thickness of the membrane that incloses them, there will be
found 1000 of such strings lying one by another to make the breadth of an
inch, and consequently 1,000,000 of them in a square inch.

In some of my late observations I took notice, that about 100 of these mus-
cular strings lying by each other were wrapped round, and inclosed with a mem-
brane, which made a muscular chord. At another time I observed in the
muscles of an ox's tongue 3 such muscular chords, each enwrapped with its
distinct membrane, whose ends when cut across would be covered by a sand no
larger than the 100th part of an inch; whence we may conceive there may be
about 5000 of such muscular chords in a square inch.

I have compared also the magnitude of these muscular strings with the size
of the hair of my peruke and of my beard, and I conceived that about 4 of
these muscular strings of the diaphragm of an ox, near the ribs, would make,
but the thickness of a hair of my peruke, and g were only sufficient to equal
the hair of my beard. Now we must not suppose that these muscular strings
are round, but each has its particular form from the pressing of them close to-
gether.

In my last observations I examined the muscles of a hare, and therein I saw
very clearly and neatly, that divers of these muscular strings ended very sharp
in the membranes of the muscle, divers also that ended in the tendons. These
observations I made with a very good microscope. These observations caused
me again to renew my examinations of the muscular strings of fish, to find out
their contexture ; hereupon I viewed several parts of cod-fishes, and found that
the thickest of these muscular strings were to be found in the parts under the
belly, which vve here call wangen. Here I found also that the strings of the
membranes being separated were furnished with rings or rimples, after the same
manner as I had obser\^ed the muscular strings of flesh to be. I further also
took notice, that when I had cut the strings athwart, I could very clearly dis-
cover the ends of a verj^ great number of small filaments, of which I conceived
every muscular string of fish was composed.

Now from the knowledge of the number of filaments in the circumference,
it will not be difficult to compute how great a number of such filaments there
may be in the body of such a muscular string of fish; for, following the rule
of Archimedes, we shall find that there may be almost 3200 of such filaments
contained in every such string. Now who can in his thoughts comprehend

VOL. II. 3 Z

538 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1681-2.

the vast number there must be of such filaments in every muscle ? and yet who
knows but that still there may be another inferior order of filaments, and that
every one of these 3200 filaments, contained in one single muscular string,
may be yet farther composed of great numbers of smaller filaments.

After I had with admiration viewed the great number of flesh-muscles of the
».ail of an ox, I resolved to observe the tail of another creature, viz. a thorn-
back, but in cutting through the same tail, I considered the blood which issued
out of it, wherein I admired that the parts of the blood, which in mankind are
globules, and make the blood red, are here altogether oval parts, which had a
small thickness, driving through a crystalline matter; and where these oval
parts lay single they had no colour, but when they lay 3 or 4 thick on each
other, they had a red colour. This made me observe the blood of a cod and of
a salmon, which I found to contain oval figures as the former ; and though I
endeavoured to observe the same very exactly, I could not find of what parts
these ovals were constituted, for some seemed to have inclosed in them in a
small space a kind of globules, and a small space from the said globule it was
surrounded with a transparent ring, and then again about the same ring a long-
ish shadowing circle, which made up the oval figure.

I took the season when oysters came to us in a short time from England,
and observed with admiration, what an extraordinary motion the beard of the
oyster made, and although I took some very minute parts of it, many of which
would not together make out the size of a sand, yet these parts, so broken, had
such a motion as was inconceivable ; for I imagined that such a small part re-
presented to me a shrimp with its continual moving pattens, and others like a
lobster. And one might have sworn that it was no part of the beard of the
oyster, but an animal of itself, notwithstanding the contrary appeared, for such
a part of the beard made no progressive motion, and remained in its motion
lying in one place so long time, that when my sight failed me with looking, I
was forced to leave it; and besides the fibres, which in so small a part seemed
pattens or paws, had the same motion with the parts of the whole beard.

I observed the shell of an oyster, and found it all made up of plates laid in
great numbers one over another, always larger and larger; so that the increase
of the oyster shell is caused by the addition of a new lamen or plate in the
shell, which last new made plate exceeds the rest in magnitude. These laminae
seem to be made up of small pipes, which are much interwoven. But that
which gave me most satisfaction was, that when each of these laminas was ar
rived at its full size, then from the small pipes of the laminae were put forth
minute laminae, which are not white like the rest, but of a brown colour, and
constituted of globules.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 589

An Eclipse of the Moon on the IQth of Augtist, 168I. Observed at Dantzic by
M. Hevelius. Philos, Collect, N° 5, p. 160.

Corrected time.
At 2*^ 46^"^ the first appearance of penumbra.
3 3 beginning of the eclipse.
5 2 the sun's centre rose.

An Account of a very strange and rare Case in Physic, with the Description of
a monstrous Aniinal cast out of the Stomach by Vomit. By Dr. Lister, of
York, F. R. S. Philos. Collect. N° 6, p. 164.

I send you (here inclosed) the true and exact shape of a worm, which a man
vomited up here the last week. I found it myself in the blood which came up
with it, having caused it to be washed for the more careful examination of it,
much of the blood being clods of a kind of skinny and fleshy substance, baud
aliter, quam in mulierum molis excernendis accidere solet. Of this kind of
blood there was about 2 lb weight saved in the washing, and this strange ani-
mal among it ; which was easily discovered, being of a dark green-colour like a
horse-leech, and spotted. I could not perceive in it any life or motion ; the
girl that washed the blood having almost beaten off a fin, and part of one of
the forks of the tail, and burst the belly of it; yet it was curiously and regu-
larly shaped in all its members. The spirit of wine in which I put it has
changed its colour, but yet it still remains perfect enough to satisfy any curious
person.

The patient imagined he drank it the last summer in pond-water. This is
certain, he had about his stomach and right side a most exquisite and torment-
ing pain, for at least 4 months last past, which many times threw him into
horrors and chillness, ague-like; and indeed when he vomited this up, he was
the sickest man I ever saw not to die; he also voided blood by stool several
days, and now I believe he will recover, though his pains are not wholly ceased.

This animal was about 4 inches long, and in the thickest place 3 inches
about ; it had 3 fins of a side, all near the head, and the upper pair most ex-
actly and elegantly figured, as is described; all these fins were thick and fleshy;
but the forked tail was finny and transparent, and to be extended; it was placed
horizontally, not as that of most, if not all, small fish, and even newts and
tadpoles, in which particular it differs from them all, as well as in the fleshiness
of the fins. See fig. 6, pi. 15.

Besides this odd animal, I found the head of another of a different shape^,
as is expressed, fig. 3, pi. 15, but of a dark green-colour also, as the other; the

3z 2

540 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 68 1-2.

body of it had not been lost, or this other so ill-treated, if I had expected to
have found, what we never looked for.

But what shall we say this monster was? I am apt to think that we often
drink and eat what is alive ; and it is certain some things will live in our sto-
machs in despite of concoction, not to instance in the many sorts of gut-worms
natural to us, and which are bred with us, perhaps in some children even be-
fore they are born ; these worms, I say, do freely wander up and down the
guts and stomach at their pleasure, and receive no prejudice from the concoctive
faculty of them ; and for this reason we see insectivorous birds so solicitous to
kill worms and all other insects, by drawing them again and again through their
bills, as canes through a sugar mill, that they may be verily dead before they
swallow them, and instinct is the great wisdom of undebauched nature; again,
admirable instances there are of animals living within animals; of which in the
insect kind the Royal Society shall ere long receive some notes of mine upon
Godartius. And yet I am of opinion that what has been accidentally swallowed
by us alive, and that shall have the power to live-on within us, may have its
designed form and shape monstrously perverted, so as to appear to us quite
another thing than naturally and really it is; and this 1 take to be the case of
this odd creature, the present subject of discourse; so that it might have been
the spawn or embryo of a toad or newt.

A New Theory of Fision. By Dr. Briggs. Philos. Collect. N° 0, p. 167.

The rise of the optic nerves is very remarkable, for as the other nerves rise
in a flat manner from the basis of the brain, these rise higher, from 2 gibbous
protuberances, called thalami nerv. optic, as////, fig. 4, pi. 15; so that the
clasping of the several fibres upon them may very well resemble the flexure of
the strings of a viol upon its bridge, which is likewise protuberant or of a con-
vex figure. Now let us suppose 2 viols of equal size, and alike strung, when
their bridges are put on, those strings that are in the uppermost part will have
the greatest tension, and those gradually less as they are remote from the same.
In like manner, I suppose that the 2 fibres that are in the zenith or apex of the
2 thalami optici have the greatest tension, and the lowest or opposite part the
least tension of all, by reason of a less flexure; and the intermediate fibres pro-
portionable or intermediate degrees, with this exception, that the internal late-
ral fibres are to be supposed to have less tension than the external lateral fibres,
because these last have the greater flexure, as is evident from dd compared,
withggf.

The superior fibre therefore in one thalamus opticus, and its correspondent

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 541

or superior fibre in the other thalamus, which run in a like manner to the su-
perior part of each eye, I call fibrae Concordes, as aa^ bb, cc, &c. and answer
to unisons in 2 viols or lutes, and therefore may be also called fibrae homotonae.
These arise separately from the brain ; nor was there any necessity of their
union at their first origin, in order to their consent, since they answer so ex-
actly in their site and tension. In like manner are those correspondent, that
are in the lowermost part of the thalami optici, and run to the lowest part of
the eye, because they have the least flexure or tension ; and therefore the in-
termediate fibres have consequently the greater tension proportionably as they
are nearer the top, or less, as they are nearer the basis, only with this dif-
ference, that the internal lateral fibres have less tension than the external, as
before-mentioned. Hence it appears that the fibres that are parallel, or in the
same position, are as it were symphonical, viz. the 2 superiors, 2 inferiors, ex-
ternal-lateral, and internal-lateral, in each thalamus opticus, exactly answer
each other in site and tension ; so that when any impression from an external
object moves both fibres, it causes not a double sensation, any more than uni-
sons in 2 viols struck together cause a double sound. Now this parallelism of
the fibres is much secured by what we are next to consider, viz.

The position of the fibres of the optic nerve, which keep their distinct or-
der. For that the nerves decussate or cross one another, or that they are so
blended together in their union, as to cause a confusion in their fibres, is not
to be imagined; but those that are in the thalami optici on the right side run
distinctly to the right eye, and those on the left accordingly. In many fishes
the case is clear, where the 2 nerves are joined only by simple contact, and in
the camelion not at all, as is said.

Besides this union of the nerves, to keep the balance, it is also much as-
sisted by the excellent contrivance of the muscles. For it is very observable,
that the musculus obliquus inferior arises out of a peculiar foramen of the or-
bit, whereas all the rest arise from the bottom at the exit of the optic nerve;
so that, both below by this muscle, and. above by the trochlearis, a distortion
of the eye is prevented. And as the two oblique muscles are equally poised, so
are the attollens and deprimens ; for though the former be somewhat the larger
muscle, yet because there is less force required to pull down than lift up the
eye, their powers are equal; as for the lateral muscles, they answer exactly both
in site and size, and consequently keep the balance, which is required to the
consent of the fibrae Concordes.

The insertion of the fibres of the optic nerve into the bottom of the eye,
and their keeping still their distinct position^ according as they arise from the

542 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1681-2.

upper, lower, or lateral parts of the thalami optici, confirm what has been
said. For the optic nerve consists of two coats, the exterior, being produced
from the dura mater, makes the sclerotica, as the interior, arising from the
pia mater, produces the uvea, and consists of medullary fibres, which being in a
distinct order expanded at their insertion into the bottom of the eye, form the
tunica retiformis. This coat looks at first view indeed like a mucous substance;
but if it be put into a crystal glass filled with clear water, and exposed to the
light or sun, after the other coats are removed, this coat will be very well ex-
panded (especially if the water be a little warm,) and will show all the fibrillse
very fairly and distinctly, like the fine threads of lawn, so that all these fibres
keep their due position, and answer to distinct parts of objects, and observe
that order or parallelism requisite to distinct vision.

From what has been said, several problems concerning vision may be
solved. As,

1. Why vision is not double, since the organ is so ? The answer is, because
the fibrae Concordes are like unisons in a lute, and the rays strike both at the
same time.

2. Hence also it appears, why upon pressing down one eye, an object appears
double ? viz. because thereby its rays fall upon discordant fibres in the other
eye not pressed, so that there are two different sensations.

^n explanation of the Figure 4, pi. 15. — a a, bb, cc, dd, &c. are the fibras
Concordes of the optic nerves, as they arise alike from the thalami optici ////,
which run also to like parts of the eye; where note that a a are the two upper-
most fibres, and are supposed to have the greatest flexure ; bb, cc, dd, the ex-
ternal-lateral fibres; ee,ff, gg, the internal-lateral; ////, the two protuberances,
called thalami nervorum opticorum, from whence the optic nerves have their
rise ; hhhhh, the parts of the brain that lie under them ; ii, the optic nerves,
made here the larger to express as many of their fibres as could be distinctly re-
presented; +, the place of their union; mm, the eyes divested of the sclerotica
and uvea; nn, the processus ciliares lying just under the iris; oo, the pupils or
sights. ■

A short Relation out of the Journal of Capt. Abel Jansen Tasman, on the Dis-
covery of the South Terra Incognita; 7iot long since published in the Loiu Dutch.
By Dirk Rembrantse. Philos. Collect. N° 6, p. 1 79.

The geographical accounts given by this celebrated Dutch navigator, are super-
seded by the more exact observations and discoveries of our own countryman.
Captain Cook.

ANNO l682.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 543

Some further Observations about the Fabric and Texture of Muscular Fibres, By
M. Leuwenhoeck. Philos. Collect. N° 7^ P* 188.

I have several times observed and examined the muscular flesh of the large
sea lobsters found upon the coast of Norway. But by all my observations of
them I could not satisfy myself of the true texture and fabric of them. But about
a fortnight since, 2 lobsters were sent me from Rotterdam ; on which I renewed
my observations about the texture of their flesh ; since which time I have clear-
ly seen that the muscular flesh of the body, as well as of the claws of the
lobsters, is composed of exceedingly small strings, which strings also have their
rimples, in the same manner as I mentioned in my last letter that the muscu-
lar strings both of flesh and of other fish also had. I separated these one from
another; and notwithstanding their minuteness, 1 have again split some of them,
and to my full satisfaction I have discovered and clearly seen that every string
of the muscles of a lobster is again composed, of a great number of much
smaller threads.

These are the observations which I have made about the texture of the
muscles of lobsters, which as they are new, so I hope they will be pleasing to
you, and agree with what you have observed, which I should very gladly under-
stand at your first conveniency.

In your last letter of the 10th of March, 1681-2, you say as follows— -Your
discoveries both in your former and this last letter are very considerable, but I
am not a little pleased to find by this, that you have discovered the same thing
in the muscles of flesh, which I long since did in those of fish ; especially in
those of lobsters, crabs, shrimps, of which I gave you some account about 4
years since, at which time also I showed them to the Royal Society at their
meeting, namely, that the muscles of these consisted of an innumerable com-
pany of exceedingly small filaments or strings, almost 100 times smaller than a
hair of my head, each of which filaments was of the shape of a string of
pearl, or beads of glass, so that a small string of such a muscle as large as
hair seemed like a necklace of small seed pearl, which is usually made up
of a great number of smaller strings, of such seed pearls. On examin-
ing the muscles of a prawn, I took notice that when I saw several of these
small muscular strings lying together, that they would appear as if thev had
been so many strings of bullets, corals or pearls lying together. But among
about 25 small separations or bundles of these muscular strings taken from the
prawn, there was one of them which was about the size of a head hair, which
lay very neatly to my view, for every string of it had its particular rimples.

544 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682.

which could not be seen so well when they lay all in a bundle ; because they
then appeared like bullets, or when 2 or 3 lay together, for then they appeared
like a braided chord, but singly. And to be sure all these several appearances of
bullets or braidings are no other than the varieties of the heightenings and
deepenings, which are caused by the various falling of the light upon these
rimplings, of the small strings of which every bundle of muscular fibres
consists.

Some Observations on a Calculus found in a Horse. By H. P. M. D. and F.R.S.
Abridged and translated from the Latin. Philos. Collect. N° 7, p. igi.

Having not long since presented to the Royal Society a stone of an extraor-
dinary size, taken from the bowels of a horse at Lambeth, I was then requested
to make further inquiries concerning the calculus, as well as the horse ; and to
transmit the result thereof to the Society. The stone, which weighed 4}b
4oz. was as large as a man's head, and not very unlike it in shape. I inquired
about the situation of the stone, the age and condition of the horse, and
whether the animal's urine was bloody, or whether he was troubled with stran-
gury or suppression of urine. But the common people are inattentive to these
things; and provided these animals are capable of going through the hard
labour to which they are put, those who own them or look after them give
themselves no trouble whatever about other matters. I imagine the person who
took out the stone to be [anatomically] ignorant of the parts or their situation.
He asserts that it was found between the bladder and intestine. Perhaps however,
there is not much mistatement of the fact in this assertion. For the stone was
on one side flat and smooth, viz. on the side down which the urine conti-
nually dribbled, but not without difficulty, by reason of the little space that was
left for it; on the other side which adhered to the bladder, it was rough and
porous, and daily increasing in bulk and weight, had worn away and destroyed
the whole of the tender coat of the bladder, so that no vestige thereof remained.
The horse, as I was informed by the owner who had kept him for 1 2 years, was
15 hands high, and was employed in carrying cloth from the dyers. The pieces
of cloth were heaped upon his back while they were yet warm from the vats,"*

* The author here enters into an inquiry, whether the hquor (impregnated witli the dying mate-
rials) from the moist pieces of cloth so frequently applied over the horse's loins, or the mere warmth
thereof (for the dyed cloth was put on the horse's back quite hot from the vats) might not injure the
kidneys in such manner as to contribute to the generation of the stone. The last supposition is by
no means improbable, especially when it is considered, that on taking oiF the load of dyed cloth,
more or less inflammatory action might occasionally be excited in those parts, in consequence of the
sudden chills which would succeed. What renders this supposition further probable, is an observation

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 545

in such manner that the animal used to groan under the burden. These jour-
nies having been discontinued for some years the horse became very restifF
and unmanageable whenever a saddle was put upon him, or whenever any
person mounted him; either because the pressure of the saddle incommoded
him, or because when he was rode fast, he experienced from the shaking
great pain and irritation. It is further to be remarked that he was constantly
kept upon hay and other dry food, not having for some years been turned out
to grass, which doubtless would have been of great service. Every year during
spring and autumn he was observed to lose flesh, and to become so heavy and
languid in his hind parts, as scarcely to be capable of moving his legs,
which he dragged after him. About 8 or 10 days before he died, ischuria
took place, the calculus having so completely filled up the cavity of the
bladder as to leave no passage for the urine. The animal now threw him-
self upon the ground, beat and tossed himself about, cast up the earth
with his feet, and expressed the acuteness of his pains by the most violent
movements. It is very remarkable that during the whole time his urine was
suppressed, he obstinately refused to drink, as if he had been instinctively
aware that if he swallowed any water it would only aggravate his sufferings, as
it could not pass off by the kidneys or bladder. This case of calculus I at first
imagined to be without parallel; but I have since met with a similar instance
in the Journal des Sqavans.*

An Account of a small Discourse about Comets, published in High-Dutch at
Neurenburg iGsi, by a Lover of Astronomy. Philos, Collect. N°7, p. 196.

A dialogue between a churchman and a naturalist, containing the most
trifling notions and fancies about comets.

of Salmasius's (quoted by this author) that he (Sahnasius) had known several persons to be affected
with stone in the kidneys, in consequence of sitting at table with their backs to the fire.

* Description of a strange Stone found in the Body of a Horse. Philos. Collect. N° 7, p. 195.

There was lately at this place (Paris) a stone of a very extraordinary size found in the body of a
Spanish gelding, about 13 or 14 years old, which died in the riding-school of M. de Bernardy j the
weight of it being 4 ft, of a roundish figure, a little flatted, its longest diameter was 5 inches, and its
shortest 4 : it was of the colour of an olive, but a little inclining to a brown, marked with several
red spots resembling coagulated blood : radiated circularly with black and white veins and waves :
but for the rest of it so delicately polished, that it reflected the images of the objects about it. It was
found enveloped in a membrane of fat, and fastened by two ends to the spine of the back near the
kidneys : it was more tlian 12 hours after the horse was dead before it was taken out of his body,
when it was found very hot, though the body of the horse was quite cold, and it retained a con-
siderable heat about 6 hours after it w^s taken out.— Original.

VOL. II. 4 A

5A6 ' PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16S2,

j4n Account of another small Treatise written in High-Dutch, and printed at
Bazily Anno 168I. Containing a Neiv Theory about the Comets, invented by
James Bernouilli,* the Title whereof is thus expressed : Anew Introduction, show-
ing hoiv the Motions of Comets may be reduced to some certain and Geometrical
Rules, so that their appearance may be predicted. Philos. Collect. N° 7, p. 199.
Before explaining his theory, he thinks it proper to say something of the
original cause of comets, of their course and motion, of their place and tail.

What concerns their principal or original cause, he says, that that old opi-
nion which supposes them to be a collection of vapours and exhalations put into
a flame by the uppermost part of the air, is scarcely worth any consideration :
for if the comets by such an inflammation should have their light of themselves,
there could be given no reason why the tail should always be seen in opposition
to the sun ; and moreover if the whole earth should be resolved into vapours,
there would not be enough to form only the tail of such a comet. Descartes's
opinion, he says, is strange enough : for according to this hypothesis, the sun
or our earth might after sometime be transformed into a comet, as some have
endeavoured to prove out of the solar spots. The author's own opinion is, that
comets are like other stars or planets, perpetual bodies, which have their certain

* James Bernoulli, a celebrated mathematician of the I7th century, and professor of mathematics
at Basil, was born at that town l654. His father intending him for the church, placed him in that
university to study divinity. But his inclination leading him powerfully to astronomy and mathematics,
he soon made a considerable progress in those sciences, witliout a preceptor, and almost without books,
and even as it were by stealth; a circumstance which led him to adopt for his device. Phaeton driving
the chariot of the sun, with this motto, " Invito patre sidera verso," I traverse the stars against my
father's will. From \676 he spent some years in travels in Germany, France, Holland, England, &c.
from whence he returned to his native country in l682, where he exhibited a course of experiments
in natural philosophy and mechanics, consisting of various new discoveries. The same year he pub-
lished his Essay on a new System of Comets, as above, and the year following his Dissertation on the
Weight of the Air. About l684 M. Leibnitz published in the Leipsic Acts, some essays on the new
Calculus Differentialis, but without discovering the method of it, Bernoulli, on explaining it, received
great applause from that philosopher, who declared tlie invention belonged as much to Bernoulli as to
himself. In this matter, and in that of Series, however, it is probable, he had derived some know-
ledge by his communications with men of science when in England. In l687, Bernoulli became pro-
fessor of mathematics in the university of Basil, where he died in 1705, in the 51st year of his age,
by a disorder arising from his close and intense application to study. Many of his compositions were
published in the Memoirs of the Academies of Paris, Berlin, Leipsic, &c. His works were collected
and published at Geneva 1744, in 2 vols. 4to. j but with the unaccountable omission of his posthumous
work, De Arte Conjedandi, one of his most ingenious labours, and published in 1713. James Ber-
noulli had an excellent genius for invention and elegant simplicity. He introduced his younger brother
John into his own favourite sciences, who lived to a great age, and became equally celebrated with
"himself, and indeed often held very rude and vexatious contention with him for the mastery in those
sciences. Their descendants have also to this day continued to pursue the same illustrious career in
the mathematical sciences ; resembling in that respect very much the celebrated race of the Gregories
in this country.

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 547

place and room in the world, in and about which they ought to move as long
as the world will last. — But their motion, he thinks, cannot be explained by any
straight line, for if so, the comet would run from one vortex into another, and
so could never transcend 6 signs or 180 degrees, which is against experience,
and for that reason he supposes it must be some crooked or bended line, as a
circular, elliptical, or some other of that kind. — As to the place of the comets,
he thinks it cannot be beneath the moon : For 1 . The parallax proves the con-
trary. 2. If the comet should be lower than the moon, it would be also some-
times eclipsed by the shadow of the earth, when by experience the comets have
at that time a curled circular light in the form of a rose. And 3, the tail be-
fore and after the conjunction with the sun would be the shortest of all, against
the experience of our sight. Next, as the comets for these reasons are above
the moon, so he thinks they cannot have any place among the planets, for their
orb requires a room far larger, to avoid the intersection which continually would
happen with the planetary orbs. From hence he concludes that there is no
place more fit for them than beyond Saturn, according to Descartes' opinion.
And thus having adopted the solid orbs and vortices of Descartes, to avoid the
intersections of such orbits, he is obliged to find a place in the immense space
between Saturn and the fixed stars, where they perform all the motions about an
imaginary centre in that space, without ever coming below the orbit of Saturn.

The Quadrature of the Circle ; from the Leipzic Acts, No, 2. By M. Leibnitu

Philos. Collect. N°7, P-204.

Geometricians have always endeavoured to find out the proportions between
straight and curve lines. And even to this day, though they have made use of
algebraical helps, they do not find the matter so easy to be accomplished by the
methods hitherto published. Archimedes was the first, for what we know, who
found out the ratio between a cone, a sphere, and a cylinder, of the same al-
titude and base, viz. that of the numbers 1, 2, 3, so that the cylinder is triple
the cone and -| the sphere ; for which cause he commanded that a sphere and a
cylinder should be carved on his tombstone. The same Archimedes found out the
quadrature of the parabola. Of late there is invented a method of measuring in-
numerable curve-lined figures, especially when the ordinates are in any proportion
multiplicate or submultiplicate, direct or reciprocal, of the intercepted abscissas.

For the figure ABC A (fig. 2, pi. 15,) will be to the circumscribed rectangle
ABCD, as an unit is to a number expressing the multiplication of the ratio,
increased by an unit. For instance, the intercepted lines A B or DC in a para-
bola, being in proportion as the simple natural numbers, viz. as 1, 2, 3, &c.
And the ordinates BC being as the squares of those numbers, viz. 1, 4, g, &c.
or in duplicate the proportion of them, and the number expressing that ratio

4 A 2

548 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682.

being 2, the figure ABC A will be to the rectangle ABCD, as 1 to 2 + 1, or
as 1 to 3, or the figure shall be a third part of the rectangle. If AB or CD
remaining as the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, and BC, BC be made as the cubes,
or 1, 8, 27, &c. as in the cubical parobala, the ratio of the ordinates being tri-
plicate of the ratio of the intercepted parts, the figure will be to the rectangle,
as 1 to 3 + 1, that is to 4, or a fourth part. But if DC, DC be as squares, and
BC, BC as cubes, that is the ratio of BC, BC, be a the ratio of DC, DC;
the figure, a semi-cubical parabola, ABC A, to the rectangle ABCD, will be as
1 to 4 + 1 , or shall equal f of the rectangle. In reciprocals, to the number ex-
pressing the multiplication of the ratio, the sign — or minus must be prefixed.

But a circle could never be brought within the compass of these rules ; and
though it has been laboured for by geometricians in all times, there could never
yet be found a number by which the ratio of the circle, to the circumscribed
square, could be expressed.

Nor could the ratio of the circumference to the diameter be ever yet found,
which is quadruple of the ratio of the circle to the square. Archimedes indeed,
inscribing and circumscribing polygons to a circle, it being larger than the in-
scribed and less than the circumscribed, shows a way of giving the limits within
which the circle falls, or of giving approaches, by which he shows that the ratio
of the circumference to the diameter is more than as 3 to 1, or than as 21 to 7,
and less than 22 to 7^ which method others have since prosecuted, viz. Ptolemy,
Vieta, Metius, and most of all Ludolphus van Ceulen, who has shown the cir-
cumference to be, as 3.14159265358979323846 &c.
to the diameter 1.00000000000000000000.

But these sorts of approaches, though they are useful in practical geometry,
give no satisfaction to the mind, which covets the very truth, unless the pro-
gression of such numbers could be carried on in infinitum. Many indeed have
professed to have found the true quadrature, as Cardinal Cusanus, Oron. Fineus,
Jos. Scaliger, Tho. Gepherander, Tho. Hobbs, but all of them falsely, being dis-
proved by the calculations of Archimedes, or by those of Ludolphus van Ceulen.

But because I perceive there are many who do not well understand what it is
that is desired in this matter; they are to know that the quadrature, or the turn-
ing of the circle into an equal square, or any other right-lined figure, which de-
pends on the ratio of the circle to the square of its diameter, or of the circum-
ference to its diameter, may be understood to be fourfold, viz. either by calcu-
lation, or by linear construction : and each of them again may be either perfectly
exact, or else almost, or pretty near. The quadrature by accurate calculation,
I call the analytical. That which is done by accurate construction, I call the
geometrical. That which is done by calculation pretty near, I call the approach.
That which is by construction pretty near, I call the mechanical. The approaches

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 54^

have been furthest carried on by Ludolphus van Ceulen ; Vieta, Hiiygens and
Others have given several mechanical.

The accurate geometrical construction may be had, by which not only an
entire circle may be measured, but any section or arch of it also, which is by
an exact and ordinate motion; but such notwithstanding as suits with transcen-
dental curves, which erroneously are accounted mechanical, though in truth they
are as geometrical as those which are commonly so esteemed, though they are
not algebraical, nor can be reduced to equations algebraical or of certain degrees,
they having degrees proper to themselves, which though they be not algebraical,
are yet nevertheless analytical. But these things I cannot in this place explain
so fully as they deserve.

The Analytical Quadrature, or that which is made by accurate calculation,
may be again subdivided into three kinds, viz. into the analytical transcendent,
the algebraical, and the arithmetical. The analytical transcendent is to be ob-
tained, among others, by equations of indefinite degrees, hitherto considered
by none. As if X '^ + X be equal to 30, and X be sought, it will be found to
be 3, because 3 ^-j- 3 is 27 + 3, or 30 ; which kind of equations for the
circle we will give in their proper place.

The Algebraical is done by vulgar numbers, though irrationally vulgar, or by
the roots of common equations, which for the general quadrature of the circle,
or its sectors, is indeed impossible. Now there remains the arithmetical qua-
drature, which is performed by certain series exhibiting the quantity of the circle
exact by a progression of terms, first rational, such as I shall here propound.

I have found therefore, that if the square of the diameter be put l , the area
of the circle will be, J- — 4--!-^ — T4"i---rr + -r3- — -rT + -tV> ^^- viz. the
entire square of the diameter being diminished, that it may not be too large, by
a third part; and again, because hereby too much is taken away, being aug-
mented by one fifth ; and again, because by this last too much is added, di-
minished by one seventh, and so onward continually.

So that the first quantity will be

too great, viz. 1, but the error will be less than -^;
The next too little, viz. 1 — ^, but the error will be less than 3 ;
The 3d too much, viz. 1 — i + i^ but, &c. -i-;
The 4th too little, viz. 1 — ^ -[- x — ^^ but, &c. i;
&c. &c.

The whole series contains all the approaches together, or the values, both
greater than they ought to be, and less than they ought to be.

So that by continuing the series, the errors may be made less than a fraction
giver\, and consequently less than any assignable quantity. Whence it follows,
that the whole series must give the true value. And though the sum of the
whole series cannot be expressed by one number, and that the series be infinitely

550 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682.

continued, yet because it consists of one regular method of progression, the
whole may sufficiently enough be conceived by the mind. For since the circle
is not commensurate to the square, it cannot be expressed by one number, but
it must necessarily be exhibited in rational numbers by a series, in the same
manner as the diagonal of a square ; and the section made according to extreme
and mean proportion, which some have called the divine section, and many
other quantities which are irrational. And indeed if Van Ceulen could have
given a rule by which his numbers 314159 &c. could have been continued in
infinitum, he would have given us the arithmetical quadrature exact in whole
numbers, which we have here done in fractions.

Now lest some less knowing in these matters might think that a series con-
sisting of infinite terms cannot possibly be equal to a circle, which is a finite
quantity, they must know that there are many series whose terms are infinite in
number, whose whole sum is equal to finite quantities. As, to give an easy
example, the series from 1 decreasing in subduple geometrical proportion,
■A- -f 4- -f i -f- tV + 3-V 4- -bVj &c. in infinitum, the whole of which notwith-
standing makes no more than 1.

There are several things relating to this quadrature, which might be taken
notice of. But I have not now the leisure to prosecute it. However I must
not omit one, viz. that the terms of this our series -f, -f , -f, -f, -f, &c. are in a
continued harmonical progression. And a series made by skipping, as -f, -i-, i,
,j^j _>_^ &c. is also of harmonical progression. And -i-, i, -^V, -^, -j^, &c. is
also a series of harmonical proportionals. Wherefore since the circle = j. -f- x -|-
+ i tV + tV + &c- — i — T — -rV — tV — -tVj &c. by subtracting the latter
partial series from the former partial series, the circle will be the difference of two
series in harmonial progression. And because the sum of any number of terms
in harmonial progression, how many soever, may by some compendium be ob-
tained; hence compendious approaches maybe deduced, if one would in this
our series take out the terms affected with the sign — by adding the two next

into one, + i — -i- and + ^ — ^ and -f -l — -^, and -|- -jV — tV. and + -rV
— _i_ , and so onward, he will have a new series for the magnitude of the circle,
namely f (that is i - i) + VV (that is -i- - i) + iV (that is i - -l-), &c.
wherefore the square inscribed being i, the area of the circle shall be J- -j- -313- -f

■5V "T" -rW "T TWi *^^'

But the numbers 3,35,99,1 95,323, &c. by skipping, are taken out of the series
of square numbers, 4, 9, 16, 25, &c. diminished by a unit, and so made the series
3, 8, 15, 24, 35, 48, 63, 80, 99, 120, 143, 168, 195, 224, 255, 288, 323, 36o,
399, &c. out of the members of which series every fourth after the first, is a
number of this our series. But I have found the sum of this infinite series
■i- + i + iV + -^ + tV + ^r + ^ + -sV + W. &c. to be 4. And by culling
out by single skipping, as -i- + -^V + -aV + -sV + w^ ^c. the sum of this infinite

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 551

series makes -5- or -f . But if out of this again another progression be culled out
by single skipping, as -^ -f tt + inrj ^^' ^^^ sum of that infinite series will be
the semicircle, the square of the diameter being 1 . Now, because by the same
means the arithmetical quadrature of the hyperbola is obtained, I thought it not
amiss to represent to view the whole harmony.

1 23 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 l6 17 18 IQ 20, &c.
1 4 91625 36 49 64 81 100 121 144 169 196 225 256289 324 361 400, &c.
03 8 15 24 35 48 63 80 99 120 143 168 I95 224 255 288 323 360 399,&c.

1 I 1 1 1 1 I I I, 1 1 I I I I 1 ! I i^ firr- — 3 .

T -& -mnr TT Ts TT To TT TlTo" T4 3 TgT 1 6 i i aV ft i b 'i i i 3^3 3<6 TiTi*^^' — T»

» 1 1 _. _ i_ 1 1 1 I 1 I Sim — « •

T • TT • TX • TT • -^-gr • 1 i 3' • TTT * « 5 5 • TTT • 3'9 ij"-*^* — t*

' 1 I 1 1 1 I 1 1 5lrr> — I .

T • • • TT • • • TT • • • TTT • • • TTT * * OC*^' — v^ »
T • • • TT • • • Ti 6 • • • TTT • • • TTT * <*C. ^ II J

where C is the circle ABCD, whose inscribed square is -|-,
and H is the hyperbola CBEHC, whose square ABCD is -f.
In the same figure, viz. fig. 5, pi. 15, to the asymptotes AF, AE, at right-
angles to each other, let there be described the curve-line of an hyperbola GCH,
whose vertex is C, and ABCD the power or square to which every rectangle
made of the ordinate as EH and the intercepted part AE, is always equal.
About this square let a circle be drawn, and let the hyperbola be continued from
C to H, so that AE be double of AB. Then putting AE to be 1, AB shall
be i, and its square ABCD will be 4-, and the circle whose power ABCD is
inscribed, will be -i. -f- ^ -f ^, &c. but the portion of the hyperbola CBEHC,
whose power inscribed is the same square 4-, which represents the logarithm of
the ratio of AE to AB, or of 2 to 1, will be ^ + Vr + ttt^ &c.*

* The above series, for the quadrature of the circle and hyperbola, were before invented by M.
Mercator, and James Gregory.

END OP THE PHILOSOPHICAL COLLECTIONS.

A Description of Pen-park Hole in Gloucestershire. Communicated by Sir

Robert Southwel. N*' 143,* p. 2. Fbl XIIL

There is a place in Gloucestershire called Pen-park, about 3 miles from

Bristol, and above 3 from the Severn, where some miners for lead discovering

a large hole in the earth, one Captain Sturmy, a warm inquisitive seaman, who

\ After being discontinued during four years, the Philosophical Transactions were begun again with
this N° 143, by Dr. Plot, who had succeeded Mr. Hooke, one of the secretaries, Nov, 30, 1 681;
and who again undertook to renew the publication, on the encouragement afforded by the Societ}'-, in
promising to purchase 60 copies of each number of the work.

552 PHILOSOPHICAL tRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1682-3.

has written a large folio on Navigation, would needs descend into it, and his
narrative was as follows :

'^ On the 2d of July, 1669, I descended by ropes affixed at the top of an
old lead-ore pit, 4 fathoms almost perpendicular, and from thence 3 fathoms
more obliquely, between two great rocks, where I found the mouth of this spa-
cious place, from which a miner and myself lowered ourselves by ropes, 25 fa-
thoms perpendicular, into a very large place, which resembled to us the form
of a horse-shoe; for we stuck lighted candles all the way we went, to discover
what we could find remarkable. At length we came to a river or great water,
which I found to be 20 fathoms broad, and 8 fathoms deep. The miner would
have persuaded me that this river ebbed and flowed, for that some 10 fathoms
above the place where we now were, we found the water had sometime been;
but I proved the contrary, by staying there from 3 hours flood to 2 hours ebb,
in which time we found no alteration of this river. Besides its waters were
fresh, sweet, and cool, and the surface of this vvater as it is now at 8 fathoms
deep, lies lower than the bottom of any part of the Severn sea near us, so that
it can have no communication with it, and consequently neither fiux nor reflux,
but in winter and summer, as all stagnant lakes and loughs (which I take this
to be) have. As we were walking by this river, 32 fathoms under ground, we
discovered a great hollowness in a rock, some 30 feet above us, so that I got a
ladder down to us, and the miner went up the ladder to that place, and walked
into it about 70 paces, till he just lost sight of me, and from thence cheerfully
called to me, and told me he had found what he looked for, a rich mine; but
. his joy was presently changed into amazement, and he returned affrighted by
the sight of an evil spirit, which we cannot persuade him but he saw, and for
that reason he will go thither no more.

" Here are abundance of strange places, the flooring being a kind of a white
stone, enamelled with lead-ore, and the pendant rocks were glazed with salt-
petre, which distilled upon them from above, and time had petrified.

" After some hours stay there we ascended without much hurt, except
scratching ourselves by climbing the sharp rocks. But for 4 days after my return
I was troubled with a violent head-ach, which I impute to my being in that vault."

Captain Sturmy falling from his head-ach into a fever, and dying; what from
his death, and the opinion of an evil spirit, nobody was willing to have any
more to do with the said hole from that time to this.

But Captain Collins, commander of the Merlin yacht, who is by his Majesty
appointed to take a survey of the coast of England, coming to the Severn for
that purpose, and visiting Sir Robert Southwel near Kingroad, Sir Robert told
him how the story of this hole had amused the country; and that the narrative
had formerly been sent to his Majesty and the Royal Society; and that there

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 553

wanted only some courage to find out the bottom of it. The captain resolved
to adventure, and on the 18th and igth of Sep. l682, he took several of his
men, with ropes and tackling fitting to descend, with lines to measure any
length or depth, also with candles, torches, and a speaking trumpet. What
he found does much lessen the credit and terror of this hole, as will appear by
the figure he took thereof, and the description following :

** It is down the tunnel from the superficies to the opening of the cavity be-
low 39 yards. Then the hole spreading into an irregular oblong figure, is in
the greatest length 75 yards, and in the greatest breadth 41 yards; from the
highest part of the roof to the water was then 19 yards; the water was now in
a pool, at the north end, being the deepest part, it was in length 27 yards, in
breadth 12, and only 5 yards and ^ deep; two rocks appeared above the water
all covered with mud, but the water sweet and good ; there was a large circle
of mud round the pool, and far up towards the south end, which showed that
the water has at other times been 6 yards higher than at present.

" The tunnel or passage down was somewhat oblique, very ragged and
rocky ; in some places it was 2 yards wide, and in some 3 or 4, but nothing ob-
servable therein, save here and there some of that spar which usually attends
the mines of lead ore. In the way, 30 yards down, there runs in, southward,
a passage of 29 yards in length, parallel to the superficies above; it was 2 and
3 yards high, and commonly as broad, and alike rocky as the tunnel, with some
appearances of spar, but nothing else in it except a few bats.

" The cavity below was in like manner rocky, and very irregular ; the can-
dles and torches burnt clear, so as to discover the whole extent thereof; nor
was the air any thing offensive. The 3 men that went down the first day staid
below 2 hours and i. The next day the captain went down with 7 or 8 men,
who staid below for an hour, and observed all things.

*' The bottom of this hole, where the land- waters gather, is 59 yards down
from the superficies of the earth, and by good calculation the same bottom is
20 yards above the highest rising of the Severn, and lies into the land about 3
miles distant from it."

The profile and ground-plot of the concave in Pen-park, before described,
fig. 1, pi. 16. — A is the superficies of the earth; B the lead-ore pit; C the
tunnel or passage down; D the long gallery; E the concave or cell; F the
upper edge of the mud; G two small rocks that appear above the water; H the
upper part of the water; I the bottom of the water; K the highest mark of
the water; L two rocks.

VOL. II. 4 B

554 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

Experiments made for altering the Colour of the Chyle in the Lacteah. By
Martin Lister, Esq. N° 143, p. 6.

The passage of the chyle through the intestines into the lacteal veins, is a
thing hitherto demonstrated to the eye by none. Dr. Lower ingeniously con-
fesses the ill success he had in trying with air, or with tinged spirit of wine; by
neither of which he was able to force a passage. And J. Walaeus (Epist. de
Motu Chyli) is very positive, that however the chyle in the intestines may be
diversely coloured, yet it is still white in the lacteal veins. And Diemerbrook
in his late Anatomy, published 1672, p. 37, affirms, Chylum semper album
inveniri in vasis lacteis mesentericis et thoracicis — viridem vero rubrum alterius
ve coloris, in iis a nemine hactenus visum fuisse.

Notwithstanding which, and my own former unsuccessful trials, Phil. Trans.
N'' 95, I did not doubt but that some happy experiment would show the con-
trary; and a purposely coloured chyle might find admittance into the lacteal
veins, though not by force, yet by the consent and introduction of nature her-
self. The success of some late experiments I made to this purpose I shall here
acquaint you with.

I caused a dog to be fed, and after about 4 hours I opened the abdomen,
and making a small incision in the jejunum, I injected an ounce or two of a
clear tincture of indigo dissolved in fair water and strained. This done, we
stitched up the gut and all again, and turned the dog upon his legs. After 1
hour and ^ we cut the stitches, and then beheld a copious distribution of
chyle and turgid lacteal veins, but as white as ever. And yet carefully search-
ing the guts, we perceived none of the injected liquor any where.

Another dog, which was kept fasting 40 hours, had a very little flesh, with-
out water, given him, about 5 hours before the injection of the tincture of in-
digo; which was performed after the same manner as before, only it was now
well warmed, and about 12 oz. thrown up the duodenum, and down the ileum.
Here were empty guts, and not the least appearance of any lacteal veins in the
mesentery. After full 3 hours the stitches were cut again, and carefully exa-
mining the mesentery, we found many lacteal veins of an azure-colour, and
cutting some of the largest of them asunder, we plainly saw a thick blue chyle
to issue forth, and to spread itself over the transparent membranes of the me-
sentery.

Whence, although it has been doubted of by some, yet it is most evident,
that the lacteal veins receive their contents from the cavity of the intestines.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 955

A correct Tide Table, showing the true Times of the High-waters at London
Bridge, to every Day in the Year l683. By Mr. Flamsteed. N" 143, p. 10.

An Account of the Tide-table. — Considering how much the river Thames is
frequented by shipping, and how long it has been the chief place of commerce
in these parts of the world, our seamen's accounts of its tides should be very ex-
act, and their opinions concerning them rational; whereas if they be inquired
into, nothing will be found more erroneous and idle. For, observing that the
high-waters at and near the new and full moons, run an hour and a half, or 2
points of the compass, longer than at the quarters, they conclude generally that
it is the variable winds that cause it, never considering how improbable it is that
so inconstant and changeable a cause should effect so constant an inequality.

In which opinion the tide tables of our almanacs have contributed much to
confirm them; for there the moon's age is got by the epacts; thence the time
of her southing, by the allowance of 48 minutes of time for every day's age,
as if her diurnal motions and returns to the meridian were altogether equable,
than which nothing is more false; and then the time of the high-water at
London bridge is made by adding 3 hours to the time of her southing so
gotten, as if there were the same constant space of time between the moon's
southing and the high-waters, which by this means are often made 2 hours dif-
ferent from truth and experience.

To amend this fault, some of the more skilful have calculated the times of
the moon's southings exactly, and then made their tide tables by adding 3 hours
constantly to them; by which means, though they agreed nearer with experi-
ence at the spring-tides, or near the new and full moon, yet they erred not
much less than by the old way at the quarters, or in the neap tides ; the ine-
quality of the tides being above double to the error committed in finding the
moon's southings by her age.

Mr. Booker, in his almanac, was the first that gave any directions for the
amendment of this reckoning, and that was only to subtract an hour from the
times in his tide-table, about the first and last quarters of the moon, because
the neap-tides did not flow so long as the springs by 1 point of the compass.
But Mr. Henry Philips, a person well known by his works of navigation, was
certainly the first that brought the inequality to a rule, whose Theory of the
Tides, and a table grounded on it, for the year l668, was printed in Mr. Ol-
denburg's Philosophical Transactions, for the month of April that year, N° 34,
which was found much more conformable to experience than was expected.

Having frequent occasion to pass between London and Greenwich by water,
some 2 years ago I observed that the tides seldom hold out so long as Mr.

4 B 2

556 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3

Philips's calculation gave them, and therefore in the months of October and
November I began to observe them more diligently, and procured them to be
carefully noted by an ingenious friend at Tower-wharf. From these observa-
tions I raised a correction of Mr. Philips's numbers, and caused a tide-table to
be made agreeable to it, which was printed by Mr. Hook in his Philosophical
Collections, ]SI° 4.

But the weather then proving stormy and unseasonable, I dare not rely on
those observations, nor that correction; therefore in the spring and summer
months following, of the year 1 682, I began to observe them again, and with
the help of my friends and servants, I noted the times of above 80 high-waters
at Tower-wharf and Greenwich, by which I found that the greatest and least
differences between the moon's true southing and the high-waters were not, as
Mr. Philips had placed them, at the full or new and quarter moons, but the
greatest nearer to the neaps, the least to the highest spring-tides. I found also
that the inequality was not the same that he had made it ; and after a trial or
two, that I could represent and answer above 6o of these observations with less
than one quarter of an hour's difference; which, considering how difficult it is
to determine the time of a high-water exactly, I cannot but esteem a very
good agreement.

Hitherto our tide- tables have only showed the time of that one high- water
which next follows the moon's southing; but in this new table T have given the
times of both, concerning which, I desire it may be noted, that when, by rea-
son of great droughts in summer, or extreme frosts in winter, the springs are
low, and the fresh waters less than usual, the tides may hold up longer than the
times noted in the table; as also when strong north-westerly or northerly
winds blow, which bring in an extraordinary flood from the northern seas, and
keep it up longer than other times. So on the contrary, when the winds blow
hard on the opposite points of the compass, or when we have much rain and
great freshes, the tides hold not out so long as the times showed in the table,
the freshes overpowering and checking them sooner; yet have I never found
that the differences between the calculated and observed high-waters have
much exceeded half an hour; most commonly they are scarcely half so
much.

This table may be reduced and made to serve for any other port of his ma-
jesty's dominions and neighbouring countries, by only subtracting or adding so
much time to the high-waters noted in it, as the high-water observed in the
said place shall be found to precede or follow the time of the high-water the
same day. For by such accounts as I have met with and received of the tides
in remote places, I find there is every where, about England, the same dif-

VOL. Xril.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 55/

ference between the spring and neap-tides, that is here observed in the river
Thames.

I could easily have made and given you a table for this reduction, if I dare
have relied on the account our mariners give of the tides in other ports; but
I find their opinions different, except where they have copied from each other
in their calendars; by reason of the afore-mentioned difference between the
times of the moon's southings and the true high-waters; for which reason I
forbear it, till further experience shall have informed us better.

An Observation of the Beginning of the Lunar Eclipse which happened Aug. 1 9,
168I, in the Morning, made on the Island of St. Lawrence or Madagascar.
By Mr. Thomas Heathcot, and communicated hy Mr. Flamsteed. N° 143, p, 15.

Mr. Heathcot was surgeon to a ship, which lay then at the bottom of a deep
bay, on the western shore of the island, and that part which the Portuguese
and our maps call the Terra del Gada. He had a quadrant of 2 feet radius,
and a telescope of Q feet, but no clock ; to supply which defect, he made a
pendulum of a string and a bullet SQ inches long, that each single vibration
might answer a second of time ; waiting the beginning of the eclipse with his
glass, as soon as he saw the true shadow enter on the moon's limb, he caused
his friends, who assisted him, to make the pendulum vibrate, and count its vi-
brations; of which they had numbered 140, or 2™ 20' of time when he took
the height of Procyon, then east of the meridian, 25° 39'; the next day he
observed the sun's meridional height with the same quadrant, whence he found
the latitude of that place 19° 29' south; hence the time when he took the
height of Procyon is found 4^ 51"" morn, and subtracting the 2"* 20^ past since
the observed beginning of the eclipse, it gives, for

The true beginning of the eclipse. . . . , 4^

Which at the observatory here I noted at . 1

Therefore this part of Madagascar is more easterly .... 2
or 44° 30', which our maps make 52°, that is 7-|^° more remote from it than it
really is.

Observations made at Dantzic, of the Comet which began to appear there,
Aug. J 6, l682. By M. Hevelius. N° 143, p. 16.
Of the late comet, I have obtained many of the meridian altitudes, and
distances from the fixed stars. But it would be tedious to mention all these,
neither have I now time to submit them to a strict calculation. At present it
may suffice to observe, that the comet was first seen here at Dantzic, Aug. 25,

48™

40'

50

40

58

0

558 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1682-3.

new style, l682, and that I duly observed it from that time till Sept. 7. As to
the path of this comet, with its velocity, and the angle of its orbit made with
the ecliptic, these may be gathered from the following table : which, however,
it may be observed is not composed from any accurate calculation, but is de-
duced by a looser way of reasoning, from a consideration of the globe.

Month. Day.

^ , ^ Lxjngit. of the

Time of the Day. ^^^^^

Latitude of the
Comet.

Motion in its !
Orbit.

Daily
more

Motion
exact.

Aug.

26

gh Qm

morn.|g5^

23°

30'

21° 0' north

27

11 0

even.

a

5

0

23 30

lO''

0'

5°

28'

28

even.

5

35

29

even.

5

41

30

3 30

morn.

18

0

25 20

13

20

30

9 0

even.

22

0

25 40

3

30

5

46

31

3 30

morn.

24

30

26 0

2

20

5

50

Sept.

1

3 30

morn.

1^

1

0

26 0

5

45

1

9 0

even.

6

0

25 40

4

45

5

46

2

5

43

3

8 30

even.

20

0

24 30

11

30

5

40

4

even.

5

34

5

even.

5

24

•

6

7

9 0

even,
even.

-Ti.

5

0

20 30

15

0

5
4

0
30

8

8 0

even.

12

0

18 15

8

0

4

0

9

8 30

even.

15

30

17 15

3

30

3

30

I

10

8 0

even.

18

30

15 45

3

0

3

0

11

even.

2

40

12

8 0

even.

23

0

14 0

5

0

2

20

13

7 30

even.

25

0

12 30

2

0

2

0

So that, by its proper motion in its orbit, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 3, it has
moved over 83° 27', and in the ecliptic 9 1*' 30'; also its latitude first increased
to 26° north, and then decreased to 12° 30'. — It may be remarked, that its
northern node is in 24° of y , and its southern node in 24*^ of tT)^ ; but its limits
were in 24° SI ^"^ ^'' The angle of the orbit with the ecliptic was nearly 26°.
But whether for its whole duration it was entirely consistent with its nodes, or
whether it varied, and how much, will appear from the calculation. — As to its
appearance, the head was rather brighter and larger than that of the year ] 68 1
but, on the other hand, it had a much shorter tail. With a long telescope we
could observe in the head only one nucleus, and that always of an oval and

VOL. XIH.] PHILOSOPHICAL TBAN8ACTI0NS. 55g

gibbous figure; except that on Sept. 8 especially, a very bright ray proceeded
from the nucleus, which was rather crooked, and passed into the tail. This is
the more remarkable, as I do not remember to have seen the like appearance in
any other comet. It may also be observed, that sometimes its tail was directed
pretty exactly in opposition to the sun, as Aug. 30 in the morning; but often
with a considerable deviation, as is usual in most comets. Its coma was also of
various lengths: for, at first the tail was of about J 2° long; afterwards rather
shorter, and sometimes longer, as far as to 15° or 1 6°; but towards the end it
diminished continually. See %. 2, pi. l6.

An Account of some Books. N** 143, p. 20,

I. KAauJ'jou Tlro'Kifjt.a.iox) AfjiAonxwi/ BiSxia y. Claudii Ptolemaei* Harmonicorum
Libri Tres. Ex Codd. Mss. Undecim, nunc primum Graece editi. Johannes
Wallis, ss. Th. D. Geometriae Professor Savilianus Oxoniae, Regiae Societatis
Londini Sodalis, Regiaeque Majestati a Sacris; recensuit, edidit, Versione et
Notis illustravit, et Auctarium adjecit. Oxonii^ e Theatro Sheldoniano, A. D.
l682. In Quarto.

This work having been never before printed in Greek, and but very imper-
fectly in Latin, by Anton. Gogavinus of Graves, above 100 years since: the
learned professor thought fit to give it in a more perfect edition. For which
purpose he has diligently compared the manuscript copies, for restoring and per-
fecting the Greek text ; and adjoined a new Latin translation of the whole, with
notes on the text : rectifying many mistakes of the transcribers, especially in the
numbers.

This work of Ptolemy gives an account of the nature of sounds in general,
but especially of those that are musical; as, of the several sorts of tones, and
their ratios one to another, &c. Showing also how harmony may be fitly com-
pared to the motions of the human soul ; and those of celestial bodies. And it is
the more considerable, as being not only the best of the kind in Greek, but as
it also gives an account of the rest; wherein they agreed or disagreed, one with
another, and on what principles.

* Claudius Ptolemy, or Ptolomy, was a celebrated mathematician of Pelusium, who flourished
under Adrian, and Marcus Aurelius, about the year 138, and who left several other valuable works,
besides that above noticed. As, 1, his geography, first printed at Bologna, 1462, in folio, and several
times since, 2. Some astronomical works, the principal among them the Almagest, first printed at
Basil, 1351, folio. 3. Some works on judicial astrolog}', &c. in 1535. He is also celebrated on
account of the system of the universe, called by his name, in which the earth is placed in the centre
of the planetary system] a system which was adopted by astronomers for many ages, but is now
totally abandoned for that of Copernicus.

500 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1682-3.

There is also added an appendix, by the Doctor, containing a brief account
of the ancient harmonics, according to the different sects of the authors, com-
pared one with another; and with the music of this age: showing how and
wherein the Greek music agreed or differed from ours ; and how the several
particulars of it are retained in ours, but differently expressed; and what in
them answer to each other. Here is a short collection of most of what occurs
material in the several Greek authors on this subject; as well those published by
Meibomeus, as others yet remaining among us in manuscript.

II. Observations on the Dublin Bills of Mortality, 168I. And the State of
that City. By the Observator on the London Bills of Mortality, Lond. l683.

III. Johannes Godartius of Insects. Done into English and methodized;
with the Addition of Notes. By Martin Lister, Esq. The Figures etched
upon Copper, by Mr. F. PI. York. Printed by J. White, for the Publisher,
l682, in quarto.

This author seems rather to have diverted himself by conversing with these
animals, which he did for 40 years, than to have given himself the trouble of
well understanding them. And yet after all this, says Mr. Lister, we shall find
him every where very just and true in his observations. That all the insects
he writes of he most industriously fed, and brought up to their change, which
is more than any man ever did before him. And though the histories he has
given may seem but few, for so long a time ; yet in these few we have some-
thing of all the genera of insects that are in nature.

Mr. Lister has also taken great care, and at his own expence, to have all the
figures finely etched upon copper plates. The whole impression intended for
the more curious, consists of but 1 50 copies.

IV. Epistola Invitatoria, ad Observationes Magneticas Variationis, communi
Studio junctisque laboribus instituendas. Dat. Altorfi Noricorum Pridie Festi
Paschalis, l682.

Dr. Sturm ius, mathematical professor at Altorf, the author of this letter,
herein first takes notice of the several steps by which the doctrine of the mag-
net has been advanced to its present state. That its power of attracting iron
has been noticed in all times; but that its verticity to the poles was first ob-
served about 400 years since by our countryman Roger Bacon. That it gives
the same virtue to steel, whence the invention of the needle between 300 and
400 years since, by the Italians : the various declination of the needle from the
meridian in various places, by Sebastian Cabot : the inclination of it to the
nearer pole, by our countryman Robert Norman. And that within these few
years, the variation of the declination, and that in one and the same place, has
also been noticed by many authors.

TOL. Xni.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 56l

Vipera Caudisona ^mericanOj or the Anatomy of a Rattle-Snake^ dissected at
the Repository of the Royal Society in January l682-3. By Edward Tyson^
M.D. Coll. Med. Lond. Cand. et R. S. Soc. N° 144, p. 25.

The observations I shall here give are such as a single subject would afford,
not what might complete the history of so curious an animal. And though it
were mightily to be wished that we had an accurate account, and exact anatomy
of one of every distinct species of animals, yet this cannot be expected but of
those that are most common ; where frequent repeated dissections might fully
inform us of nature's admirable contrivance and mechanism of animal bodies.

This which we dissected was sent to Mr, Henry Loades, a merchant in Lon-
don, from Virginia ; who was pleased not only to gratify the curiosity of the
Royal Society in showing it alive, but likewise gave it them when dead, and so
afforded an opportunity of farther satisfaction in observing the inward parts of
it; which I find so conformable in almost all respects to those of a viper, that I
have taken the liberty of placing it in that class, and (since it has not yet, that
I know of, any Latin name) of giving it that of vipera caudisona ;♦ for as I am
informed by merchants it is viviparous, and the epithet sufficiently distinguishes
it from those that have no rattle, although of these too there ought to be made
a subdivision. But I shall concern myself at present only with the anatomy,
which I think is yet given by none; though to me it seems the principal part in
a natural history of animals ; and for other accounts I shall refer to Marcgravius,
Piso, Johnston, Nierembergius, De Laet, Hernandez, and others who have
written of it; and describe it under the names of boiqininga, or boiqinininga,
and boiquira, which are the Brasil names. By the Portuguese it is called cas-
cavela and tangador; by the Dutch raetel-schlange ; by those of Mexico,
teutlacocauhqui, or teuhtlacot-zauhqui, i. e. domina serpentum, and from its
swift motion on the rocks like the wind, hoacoatl.

Before we look within, we shall take a short survey of its outward parts. See
pi. 17. This that we dissected was 4 feet 5 inches long ; the girt of the body
in the largest place, which was the middle, was 6^ inches; the girt about
the neck 3 inches; near the rattle 2 inches; the head flat on the top, as
is the viper, and by the protuberance of the maxillae somewhat represent-
ing the head of a bearded arrow ; at the extremity of it were the nostrils,
(fig. 5, a), between them and the eyes, but somewhat lower, were two other
orifices (fig. 5, b), which I took for the ears, but after found they only led
into a bone that had a pretty large cavity, but no perforation. Vipers have not

* The Linnaean generic name of the rattie-snake is crotalus. There are several species.
VOL. H. . 4 C

562 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

these orifices in the head; and Charas says that they hear by the nostrils ; and
that to them run not only the olfactory but auditory nerves also. The eye was
round, about ^ of an inch diameter ; in colour, the make of the pupil, and
other respects, like a viper's, as indeed, except in the rattle, was the whole ex-
ternal shape of this animal. There was a large scale jetting over the eye, which
seemed to serve as a palpebra for defending it from any thing falling on it ; but
I could not perceive it was capable of closing, although inwards it seemed to
have a membrana nictitans, which removes any dust that might adhere to
the eye.

The scales on the head were the smallest of any ; those on the back larger,
and so proportionably greater to the largest part of the body; and so diminish-
ing thence again to the setting on of the rattle; all in figure somewhat resem-
bling parsnip seeds. Their colour various : the scales on the back had an edged
rising in the middle, which was still less protuberant as they grew nearer the
sides, where they were flat.

The belly seemed flat, covered with long scales of a yellowish colour, speckled
black. From the neck to the anus we numbered 168; beyond the anus were
two half scales ; thence 1 9 whole scales of a black lead colour with yellowish
edges; from thence to the rattle 6 orders or rows of smaller scales of the same
colour.

The scales of the belly were joined to each other by distinct muscles; the
lower tendon of each muscle being inserted into the upper edge of the following
scale ; and the other tendon of the same muscle inserted about the middle of
the foregoing scale. These muscles (fig. 1, s,s,s) were more fleshy towards
the middle of the scale; and then its fibres ran obliquely ascending. To each
scale was appropriated a rib, whose point joined with the extreme of it, which
must much advantage the use nature seems to design them for, by strengthen-
ing them to perform their reptile motions ; for the scales are as so many feet^
which being free and open downwards, they thereby take hold of the ground,
and so contract their body forwards, and then shoot out again, and so perform
their motion. Whence it is observed by Nierembergius,* that on rocks their
motion is much quicker than on the earth or plains.

Since they must be always grovelling on the ground, it is a provision of na-
ture in furnishing them with this coat of armour for their defence ; which is so
curiously contrived, that though it covers the whole, yet by its frequent joint-
ings it admits of all motions. And for this too, the vertebras of the spine seem
admirably contrived ; there being a round ball in the lower part of the upper

* Hist, exotic. 1. 12, c. 1.— Orig.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS? 563

vertebra, which enters a socket of the upper part of the lower vertebra ; as tlie
round head of the thigh-bone does the acetabulum of the os ischii, by which
means it can turn itself any way.

Having placed it on its back, we opened it ; and observed that the tendons of
the abdominal muscles made a linea alba in the midst of the scales of the belly ;
where likewise ran a large blood vessel (fig. 2, rr) arising from the vena cava
towards the lower part of the liver. But not to be too nice here, we proceeded
to examine the viscera, concerning which I shall here give some remarks.

And first, the wind-pipe was different from that of most other animals ;
which usually having their cartilages annular, or at least conjoined by a mem-
brane, form a fistula for conveying the air into the bronchia; which thence is
transmitted into the small bladders of the lungs. But here (fig. 1, aaa) which
is common with it to the viper kind, as soon as it enters the breast, presently
meeting with the lungs, it consists only of semi-annular cartilages; which being
joined at both ends to the membrane of the lungs inwardly is quite open, and
immediately transmits the air to the vesiculae of the lungs ; as will better appear
by (fig. 4, aaa). For, dividing the wind-pipe, we perceived it easily extended
above l^ inch wide ; whereas before it meets with the lungs the cartilages are
annular. The trachea or wind-pipe was 20 inches long, terminating near the
heart and beginning of the liver, and reaching to that part of the lungs which
made the great bladder. The cartilages of the trachea near the beginning were
-f- of an inch, but toward the end -l of an inch, and lying fiattish from end to end.

The use of the trachea is plain, for conveying the air into the lungs; which
how considerable an organ they are nature seems to show us by the admirable
contrivance and largeness of their structure. They begin from the throat, and
run down 3 feet in length. The upper part (fig. 1, b) of them that lay in the
forepart of the body for the length of a foot, and reached to the heart, was
made of small vesiculae or cells, like the lungs of a frog : but from the frequent
branchings and checquers of the blood vessels there, appeared of a florid red.
This part tapers proportionably to the body ; the lowest part of it near the heart
moderately blown, was in compass 5^- inches; a little lower, for the space of 4
inches, the cells gradually disappeared ; so that they seemed at last to form only
a reticular compages of valvules conniventes on the inside of the membrane of
the lungs ; and the compass of the greatest place here was about 6^ inches ; but
from thence to the end of the lungs was only a large bladder (c, c, c, c, c) with-
out any cells; composed of a thin but strong transparent membrane, the com-
pass of which blown as the former was 8^ inches.

The lungs of the salamandra aquatica, and some other animals, are only two
large bladders. In the frog, crocodile, &c. are two large lobes, filled with

402

564 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 682-3.

membranous vesiculae or cells. Our rattle-snake, and all that family, though
they have but one lobe of lungs, yet in that they comprise the two former sorts;
the forepart being filled with numerous vesiculae ; the latter an entire large bladder.

In the land tortoise there are two lobes, one, on each side; but these are sub-
divided into several others, according to the partitions of the ribs that are fixed
to the shell ; and they lie chiefly in the belly, that is, the lower part of the
body. But what I would remark is, that where the bronchia first enter these
subdivisions it is reticular; then they form a large cavity : so that in these ani-
mals, where the nixus of respiration is not so frequent, nature provides a suffi-
cient store-house for this (so necessary a pabulum vitae) in these larger bladders,
whence it is dispensed according to the exigency of the oeconomia animalis.
For the tortoise viper, rattle-snake, frogs, toads, &c. which sleep a great part
of the year ; as before they betake themselves to this repose, they take in their
store of food; so perhaps that of air too, a more constantly requisite supply of
life. For when thus stupidly asleep, and sometimes to all appearance dead; it
may be questioned whether they have any motion of those parts, which is re-
quired for drawing in fresh air in inspiration. But since their life here is so im-
perceptible and small ; this stock may be sufficient, the decay being so little*
So the salamandra aquatica, that lives under water, for lungs has two large
bladders, not unlikely for this reason; that it might not be forced so often to
raise itself out of the water to breathe in fresh air when the former is spent and
decayed.

In a viper I lately dissected, which remained alive some days after the skin
and most part of the viscera were separated, I observed the lungs all this while
not rising and falling, as in inspiration and expiration, but constant, equally
distended with air; that as soon as it died, it expired, and they fell. But the
stomach was empty, and I doubt not was so some considerable time before ; as
was the rattle-snakes,* which for 4 months at least had eaten nothing : so that
although they can live so long w^ithout food, yet nature is mighty provident in
supplying them with air, in bestowing on them such large receptacles for
receiving it.

We shall now take notice of those parts that are for receiving the food ; and
first of the oesophagus, or gula, which serves for the transmitting it into the
stomach ; and indeed this seems the only use of this part in most other animals ;
but here nature may be thought to intend it for something more, and to make
use of it upon occasion as a stomach, or stomachs too; for upon blowing
up this part, I observed two large swellings as represented in fig. 1. d, f ;

* Narrant multij qui eum serpentem domi alere solent atque educare, annum integrum durare
absque cibo ullo potuque. Nieremberg. Hist. Nat. 1. 12, cap. 1. — Orig.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SGS

nor was the true stomach capable of that extension as these were. The
whole length of the oesophagus was 2 feet 3^^ inches; the length of the proper
stomach (g) 5 inches, lying in a straight line with the oesophagus, but thicker
than it, having a remarkable coat more on the inside, easily distinguishable by
its colour, substance and plicae, and jetting over the inside of the gullet; and
in all respects as in the viper. From the pylorus the duct (fig. 2. g,) straight
again for 1-^ inch; and then formed a large intestine, (e, e, e,) which afforded a
pleasant sight, by the weaved rugae of its inward coat ; which gut after some
small windings, ended at last in the rectum, (f, f, f,) whose capacity was much
less than the former. In the stomach and guts I observed abundance of lumbrici
teretes, which is a disease vipers likewise are subject to. The whole length from
the throat to the anus is but one continued ductus; though often variously,
distinguished, according to nature's different intention in the several species of
animals.

But since in that promiscuous food they take in, which they swallow always
whole, there are often some parts unfit to be digested, and therefore to be re-
turned again; (the gullet here being very long, and upon that account incommo-
dious for this action ;) nature has provided these swellings in it, where they may
be respited, till recovering its force, it gives them another lift, and upon a third
effort at last wholly ejects them. And if what is confidently reported by many,
be true, that on occasion of danger they receive their young into their mouths,
these are fit places for receiving them.*

The food before it can prove aliment, must be comminuted, and broken into
the smallest particles; which in these membranous stomachs, I cannot see how
it can be performed, but by corrosion. A principal menstruum in doing this, I
take to be that liquor, which is discharged by the glands that are seated in some
at the beginning of the throat, and are called salival, or just above the stomach
or gizzard of birds, and called the echinus, or in others in the stomach itself,
and called the glandulous coat ; and such I take the inward coat of the stomach
of our rattle-snake to be.-)'

When comminuted it is discharged into the guts; which, that the chyle might
not pass off with the faeces, are often convoluted, or winding, as here, (fig. 2.

* Of this we have the attestation of Mons. Beauvois, who, (in the 4th vol. of the American
Philosophical Transactions) declares himself an eye-witness of the process, having seen a large
female rattle-snake, which he happened to disturb in his walks, open her mouth and receive 5 young
ones down her throat, which in about a quarter of an hour she again discharged : on his approaching
a second time, the same circumstance again took place, and the snake made its escape.

t Modern physiologists have shown that this conjecture respecting the agency of a solvent liquor
«r menstruum (the gastric juice) in the process of digestion, is well founded.

566 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 682-3.

e, e, e,) ; that so by impeding a too quick descent of it this way, or by valves,
a separation may the better be made; and then the faeces, as useless, cannot
quicker be discharged than by the rectum ; which where the faeces are hard, is
furnished with a stronger muscle the better to help its action; and such seemed
the rectum here; and the fasces harder than usual in vipers.

So that the whole ductus alimentalis, from its uses, may ordinarily be divided
into 4 parts. 1. That which conveys the food, the oesophagus. 2. That which
digests or corrodes it, the stomach. 3. That which distributes the chyle, the
intestines, 4. That which empties the faeces, the rectum. But a leech is all
stomach, from one end to the other, and devours at a meal several times the
weight of its whole body : the stomach when swelled and stretched with blood
is far bigger than the leech itself; nay, several times exceeds it. But I mistook
the number, it was not one, but many stomachs ; for the cavity is divided by
several transverse membranes, into divers distinct cameras; but these membranes
in the middle have a hole that leads from one into the other: but by the pouch-
ing out of each side, each of these may be reckoned also two ; in all we may
number, (there being 10 or 11 of these cameras, besides those 2 long ones
which at last run to the tail) at least 22, if not 24 stomachs, but the rectum which
lies between the forking of the 2 last long sacculi, or stomachs, is but small, and
short in respect of the whole; but of this perhaps more in my anatomy of this
animal.

The heart, (fig. 1. k,) was placed near the bottom of the trachea, on the right
side of it. The length of it was l-i- inch, its figure rather flat than round; en-
compassed with a pericardium, and the auricle (1) larger than the heart itself.
It had but one ventricle, the valves small, and fleshy : and the inside of the
ventricle distinguished by 4 or 5 cross furrows. Why Charas should make the
heart of the viper to have two ventricles, I see no reason ; I should much more
easily allow a double auricle, one at the entrance of the vena cava, of which
there are two branches (n, n, n,) descending and one ascending ; the other for
the arteria aorta, which has two ascending and one descending branch (m, m, m,)
as in the figure.

A little below the heart lies the liver (o, o.) ; which was about an inch wide
in the largest place, and seemed divided on one side by the vena cava into two
lobes of an unequal length ; for that on the left side was about 10 inches, and
that on the right side about a foot long; its colour a brown red, and its use no
doubt for the separating the gall that was contained in a bladder (p) seated at
some distance below. The gall-bladder here was 2 inches long, the colour of
the gall contained in it a grass-green, which sweating through its coats had deeply
tinged all the adjacent parts. The ductus cysticus, by which it empties itself

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 567

into the intestine, arises from the top of the bladder; so gently descending passes
through that part which Charas takes for the pancreas (d) ; but which the an-
cients called the spleen, and so enters the beginning of the large intestine.

Now I shall describe the kidneys. But I must first observe the fat which was
very plentiful, and is said by Nardus Anton. Recchus,* to be used by the phy-
sicians of Mexico with good success, in the sciatica and all pains of the limbs,
and for discussing preternatural tumors. The membrane it adhered to, I take
for the omentum ; which encompassed all parts contained in this lower belly ;
and was joined to both sides of the ribs, so running to the rectum, and form-
ing a bag that enveloped the parts here, but was free, and not conjoined towards
the belly. Ttie lower belly I call it to distinguish it from the rest of the trunk,
for the whole was but one continued cavity ; there being no partition of it by
any diaphragm ; and I have represented the parts contained here, in my 2d
figure, as the others are in the 1 st ; but proportionably much larger, as appears
by the descriptions.

The two kidneys were about 7 inches long, and about -^ inch broad each;
though one continued body, yet plainly distinguishable into several smaller
kidneys, as I remember in one I numbered 1 5, but also very curiously contrived,
and with so much beauty, that I want words to express what the pencil could
not imitate, much less can be represented in a print. I shall therefore in my
description, the better to help out and illustrate my meaning, have a constant
reference to the figures ; which being anxious to make as well as might be, I
«pent so much time, that I had not an opportunity of satisfying my curiosity in
all respects (the parts drying) as I desired; but I observed, as likewise several
others who viewed them, when first taken out of the body, that the whole seemed
a delicate compages of vessels, and the intermixture of those of the blood with
those other white ones, that are the secretory, composed most regularly
formed bodies. In my figures, that on the left side (fig. 2,) represents the upper
surface of the kidney, which appears first in the dissection; the other, the lower
side which lies to the back; in both there are two large blood vessels running
down each side ; one marked (n, n, n, fig. 2.) the other, where the vas deferens
runs ; but is not here represented ; and from these arise several lesser branches
(o, o, o, fig. 2.) at set distances, which curiously spreading themselves form
as it were ramifications of trees. As many as there were of these emulgent
vessels (for so I take them to be) so many kidneys were in each ; the interstices
(p, p, p, fig- 2.) of these blood vessels were filled up with other white ones;
which I doubt not are for the secretion of the urine, and on this side appeared

* Rerum Med. Novae Hispan. Hist, lib, 9. c. 17. p. 328.— Orig.

508 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 682-3.

more numerous than on the other; but it is impossible to represent the curious
interweavings of both ; but here in the under side of the right kidney in some
places they appeared more distinct; for (QQ, %. 2.) shows the large blood
vessel, whence arise the emulgents (r, r, r, fig. 2.) which, spreading themselves
very thick into the bodies (s, s, s, fig. 2.), make them appear all bloody, between
which for a little space there appears a small body of the white secretory vessels
(t, t, t, fig. 2.)

The ureters ran almost the length of the kidneys : being a common trunk
that received the lesser branches that went to each single gland (it is in part re-
presented by the letters (v. v. fig. 2. ), and both terminated near each other in
the cloaca, making a rising there; for our rattle-snake, like birds, had a cloaca,
which in the female viper receives the orifices of the ureters, and the two uteri;
and in part it may be said that of the rectum too, which yet had a convenient
valve that covered it.

Near the verge of the cloaca, we observed two other orifices which seemed
covered by the folding of the skin, and these led into those two bags (fig. 2, m, m,)
which I have taken the liberty to call the scent-bags. Charas is much mistaken,
who supposes them to be the parastatae or conservatories of the seed, as likewise
those he would refute that would have them to be other testicles : and I the
more wonder at this his mistake, since he could not but have observed them, as
I have, in the female vipers too; which sufficiently shows his error. One of
them was about an inch long, and as big as a goose quill, but taper towards the
end, and from the colour of the liquor it contained, appeared darkish ; the other
bag was something less, and its colour as in the viper; this difference I suppose
may be accidental : the liquor included in them was something crass, and of a
strong and very unpleasant smell ; such, but in a more intense degree, as the
animal emitted before dissection ; which Martial likewise takes notice of, having
placed it in the last but one in his catalogue of stinks. L. 4. Epigr. 4. And
De Laet * makes mention of some snakes in the West Indies, that stink worse
than any fox or pole-cat.

We now come to the organs of generation : and I find that Charas is as un-
happy in the description of some of them, as he was in his conjecture about
that part we call the scent-bag. We shall begin with that, wherein the seed is
first made, the testes, (fig. 2. h, h,) which are very unproportionate in length;
the right being 2i inches long, the left but 1-^ inch long, scarcely so big in com-
pass as a goose-quill. The unequal length of this part Charas takes notice of in
vipers. I shall add, that the ovarium of the female viper is the same; for that

* Hist. Indiae Occident. 1. 15. c. 6. p. 555. — Orig.

VOL. Xm.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 56^

of one side was as big again as the other. The colour of the testes was white,
as is usual, and so was their substance. I took notice of the vasa praeparan-
tia, which had nothing uncommon : but the deferentia (i, i,) were remarkable;
for though they ran in a straight line almost from the testes to the penis, and
formed no large body, yet this duct was so often involved, that were it unravelled
and extended its whole length, it would be twice as long: which made me think,
that it was only the extension of the epidydymis, for the whole testis is but a
congeries of curiously convoluted vessels which terminate in the epidydymis,
whose continuation makes the deferens : and where its convolutions are many
upon the body of the testis itself, there the deferens is an even duct ; but
as in our subject it making no such body there, or but a very small one, in its
passage downwards it was every where crimpled, and about the middle of the
kidneys often convoluted, which is represented in our figures.

Where they emptied themselves I could not so well observe in the rattle-snake,
since the parts which I had laid out for making the scheme soon dried, before I
had an opportunity of nicely examining them. But since upon the dissection
of a viper I found that they (fig. 3. a) were continued along the penis single,
where the penis was so; and afterwards divided, and ran to the end of each.
Nor were there any vesiculae seminales or prostatas here to receive them ; and a
reason for it, I shall allege when I have described the penes (fig. 2. K), which
here were very remarkable, not only for their structure, but number likewise ;
there being 4 in all, two on each side, which lay sheathed in the body, that
upon first opening it they were not to be perceived, but only the large orifices
where they were drawn in as a finger of a glove may be by a thread fastened to
the end. But having protruded them by a probe, they appeared as is represented
in (fig. 2.) And I observed that towards the basis, or root, they were single of
each side, and that here they were thick beset with prickles, whose points looked
backwards, and were very sharp ; and seemed, especially when dry, like the sub^
stance of the bristles of a hedge-hog: but hence they were divided, and
formed two round bodies, of the size of a small goose quill, about 4 of an inch
long of a red colour ; but the whole, as protruded, was above an inch long.
When protruded I found they could easily be retracted, and drawn in by
the help of large muscles, (1, 1,) that were fastened to them and ran along
under, and were at last inserted at the end of the tail at the setting on of the
first rattle; which upon the trial was so plain that we need not doubt of the use
of them, and I shall therefore call them retractores penum. But Charas seems
to mistake them in vipers, for the penes themselves; which he describes to have
their origin from the extremity of the tail ; as does Baldus Angelus Abbatius,*

* De Viperae natur. et facultat. cap. 19, pag. mihi 60.— Orig.
VOL. II. 4 D

570 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

Aldrovandus*, and others, who perhaps misled him in the account of these
parts. Nor as to the other extremity are they more in the right, which by their
picture and description, they make to be altogether single, and covered and
quite beset with prickles like the skin of a porcupine. Whereas this part in
vipers too, as well as in the rattle-snake, divides and forms two large round
bodies, or two distinct penes. And this Baldus, or rather Camentius, who made
the dissection for him, seems to have observed where he says, Quando turgidi
fiunt, aut extra violenter emittantur, uti saepe apud Paulum vidimus, pene banc
formam referre Y aspectu aspero ut Erinaceus. For in vipers they are hispid to
the end ; but not in the rattle-snake, as is plainly represented in the figures
of both.

There are several animals which have no penis at all, but vasa deferentia, as
most fishes. The rattle-snake and that family have these organs of generation
the most numerous of any I have hitherto met with. But why the male rattle-
snake, or the male viper, should have 4 penes, when the female has but 2
uteri for receiving them, seems a difficulty to me. Amongst many conjectures
I have had about it, what seems the most to satisfy me, is this: that they have
the penis here on each side double^ or forked, that so being entered the uteri,
by spreading themselves like the pythagorean Y, they may the better and more
firmly be retained there till they have performed their duty. And this too seems
one use of the aculei or bristles towards the root of them ; for having their
points looking backwards when once they have entered the pudendum, they must
needs lock them in, and retain them there, till such time as the parts being
tired, and subsiding, have leave to retreat. For in animals which have no ve-
siculae seminales, it is requisite that the coitus be long, that so the seed which
cannot quickly, may leisurely be transmitted from the testes: but where it is
beforehand stored up in the vesiculas, there the coitus is soon over; but when
they must expect the generation, or at least a sluggibh descent of it, nature
makes provision for the more convenient performing it. So in dogs, which have
no vesiculae seminales, near the root of the bony penis, there is a large body
made up of an abundance of cells and vessels, which upon the rushing in of
the blood and spirits, is so mightily extended and swelled, that it forcibly keeps
him in, until such time as the impetus be over, and the part subsides. There-
fore in the rattle-snake, (where, as we have observed, there are no vesicular,
and where the vas deferens is all along crimpled and winding, and so upon both
accounts must be thought to be long in coition) the contrivance and structure
of these parts seem very requisite. For although in this action they twist their

* Aldrovandus de Serpent, et Dracon. — Orig.

TOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 571

bodies, which may be some advantage too, yet not sufficient alone ; for other-
wise upon a Httle occasion the parts would be apt to sHp out, which now they
cannot, being forked, and hooked in too by the aculei or bristles. But the de-
ferentia being continued to the end of the penes do likewise show this must be
the use of them. But that the female may receive no injury by these spines,
nature has made that part of the uteri which they enter strong and gristly ; as
we observed in a viper : and that the male too might not be harmed by an over
extension of these parts, those strong muscles which serve for retracting and
drawing them in, do likewise secure them in this respect too. It may be like-
wise considered, since they are naturally so cold and frigid, whether these aculei
may not serve to incite them, and stir them up. From these parts we pass to
the poisonous teeth.

But first I shall remark something of the other parts in the mouth: as the
tongue, the larynx, and the smaller teeth.

The tongue (fig. 5, g,) was in all respects like that of the viper, being
composed of two long round bodies, contiguous and joined together from the
root ^ of its length; which with great agility the animal could dart out, and
retract again. The use it is designed for, I suspect with Charas, to be in part
for catching flies and other insects.

Over the tongue (fig. 5, f,) lay the larynx; not formed with that variety of
cartilages as is usual in other animals; but so as to make a rime or slit for re-
ceiving or conveying out the air : nor was there any epiglottis for preventing
other bodies from slipping in ; this being sufficiently provided for, by the strict
closure of them : and the air passing through only such a slit, without the con-
trivance of other parts for modulating it, can only make such a sound as we
observe in their hissing.

The teeth are of 2 sorts, (fig. 5, c, c, h.) ] . The smaller, which are seated
in each jaw, and serve for the catching and retaining the food. 2. The poison-
ous fangs (fig. 5, d, d, fig. 6, h, fig. 7.) which kill it, and are placed without
the upper jaw, are all canini or apprehensores ; for since they do not chew or
bruise their food, but swallow all whole as they meet with it, there is no need
of molares.

Of the first sort of teeth: in the lower jaw there are 2 rows on each side, 5
in a row, the inward smaller than the outward, so that there are here 20 in all ;
in the upper jaw there are but 1 6, 3 on each side, placed backwards, and 6 be-
fore. These do no harm, which was known to mountebanks (as Caesalpinus and
others observe) formerly ; who to give a proof of the force of their antidotes,
would suffer themselves to be bitten by vipers, but first took care to spoil them
of their fangs.

4 D 2

PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 682-3.

These fangs are placed without the upper jaws, towards the forepart of the
mouth, not fastened to the maxilla, as the other teeth; but the 1 outmost
and largest fangs (fig. 6, g.) were fixed to that bone (f.), which if any, may be
thought to be the ear-bone. The other fangs I could not perceive were fastened
to any bone, but to muscles or tendons there. These fangs or larger teeth
were not to be perceived upon first opening the mouth, they lying couched
under a strong membrane or sheath; but so as to make a large rising there on
the outside of the smaller teeth of the maxilla; but at pleasure when alive they
could raise them to do execution with, not unlike as a lion or a cat does its
claws. These teeth were hooked and bent like the teeth of a barbarossa ; but
some of the smaller of them (fig. 7) were bent at right angles, but their shape
and size will be best understood by the figures we have made of them. On
each side we met with about 6 or 7 not altogether placed so exact as is re-
presented in the head in fig. 5; which was done to show them more dis-
tinctly. For the second tooth, upon raising it, lies more on the side of the
first; and the other being fastened only to muscles or tendons which are flexible,
it is difficult to assign them their posture. In all these teeth, especially the
larger, we took notice of a pretty large foramen or hole towards the root of it,
and towards the point there was a plain visible and large slit, like the cut of a
pen sloping, and that part from the slit to the root was perfectly hollow; which
first of all was discovered to us by pressing gently with our finger the side of
the gum; for then we perceived that the poison readily arose through the hol-
low of the tooth, and issued out of the slit. This we tried several times,
which trials spoiled our inquiry into the bags and glands that furnish them with
that liquor. But our defect therein may well be supplied with what Charas and
Redi* have written of the same parts in vipers. -f- This poisonous liquor I ob-
served to be of a water-colour, lightly tinged yellow: perhaps in some it may
occasionally be deeper, and this, it may be, has given rise to that fond
opinion of those who have imagined that it was transmitted by a vessel from
the gall-bladder. Indeed scarcely any subject in philosophy has admitted more
controversies than this of the poison of vipers, in what it consists, what it is,
and how it produces its dire effects. Severinus, in his Vipera Pythia, has made a
large collection of them, and who so please may there satisfy their curiosity
about it.

I now proceed to describe the skeleton: and first of the bones of the head.
I observed that the cranium (fig. 6, a) here was entire, without sutures, as re-

* Add also Mead and Fontana.

+ See vol. i. p. 58, of this Abridgement. And respecting the controversy between Redi and
Charas, see ibid. pp. 411 and 654.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 573

presented in our figure; only where some other bones were joined to them, as
forwards over the nostrils, were 2 small bones, (cc) to which were fastened
the cartilages (d) or rather bones which divide the nose. The other bones
seemed admirably contrived for the great extension and widening of the maxillae,
which seems a great provision of nature; for since it must swallow all things
whole, and its head is but small, without this most mechanical contrivance it
were impossible to do it. The upper jaw forward was joined to the bone that
receives the poisonous fang, and which had a large cavity in it, which opened
outward, and was thought to be the foramen of the ear, (fig. 5, b) but inwards
we observed no perforation for a nerve, unless there might be one that comes
to it under that bone (fig. 6, ee) which conjoins it to the cranium. This arti-
culation seems advantageous, both for the motion of the fang, which lies some-
times couched, sometimes erected, as the jaw too; but its principal and most
remarkable advantage for swallowing large bodies, is the curious articulation of
the maxillae backwards to the cranium by 2 bones, which from their use (since
we know no name to distinguish them by) we shall call maxillarum dilatores.
Their shape, size, and aptness for this motion, will readily enough be con-
ceived by the eye in observing the figure (fig. 6, no). For the lower jaw being
not conjoined at the mentum, as is usual in other animals, but parted at a good
distance; upon the receiving a large body, as the membrane here to which they
are fastened easily extends, so by lifting up, as also by bringing these two bones
more to a straight line, it must needs considerably widen the rictus of the
mouth, and" for this cause too they are made 2, not 1, for performing this mo-
tion more easily. This articulation (m) of the dilatores (which is very curious)
with the upper and lower jaw, makes those protuberances of the head, which
we likened to that of a bearded arrow, as does Hor. lib. iii. Od. xxvii.

The lower jaw of each side was composed of 2 bones, as appears in the fi-
gure, but firmly conjoined. The fore bone was for receiving the small teeth,
the hinder towards the articulation gre\v broad, as likewise did the bone of the
upper jaw answerable to this place in the lower. But this upper jaw towards
the poisonous fang divided into 2 bones, one was fastened to the bone of the
poisonous fang outwards, the other, which received the small teeth, was in-
serted into the same bone more inwards.

The vertebrae, according to the whole figure of the body, were smallest to-
wards both extremes, and largest in the middle. From the neck to the anus
there were as many observed scales on the belly, viz. l68, but from the anus
to the setting on of the rattle 29 more in number than the scales. The former
vertebrae had a flat upright spine (fig. 8, a) towards the back, and a slender
round oblique descending one (b) inwards to the belly. To each vertebra, be-

574 . PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

sides those spines just mentioned, there were other processiises (c d) for the ad-
vantage of setting on of the ribs, and the articulation with each other; but
what was most remarkable is (what I have already hinted) that round ball (e)
in the lower part of the upper vertebrae, which enters a socket of the upper
part of the lower vertebrae, like as the head of the os femoris does the aceta-
bulum of the OS ischii; by which contrivance, as also the articulation with each
other, they have that free motion of winding their bodies any ways. The ribs
in the neck were small, but larger towards the middle of the body, where they
were about 2 inches long; but towards the tail they grew less and shorter again,
and did all terminate at the beginning of the scales of the belly. In the ver-
tebras of the tail inwards there were 2 spines, (fig. 9, bb) whereas in the other
vertebrae there was but 1 ; as likewise there were here transverse slender pro-
cessuses (cc) something analogous to ribs.

To the last vertebra of the tail was fastened the rattle (fig. 11, 1 2) ; in our sub-
ject there were but 5, but some others seemed to be broken off. That next the
tail was of a lead-colour, the others of a cineritious. It is well described by (Mus.
Reg. Soc. p. 5 1 ) Dr. Grew, who says, " They are very hollow, thin, hard, and
dry bones, and therefore very brittle, almost like glass, and very sonorous. They
are all very nearly of the same bulk, and of the self-same figure, most like the
OS sacrum of a man ; for although the last of them only seems to have a rigid
tail, or epiphysis adjoined to it, yet have every one. of them the like: so that the
tail of every uppei most bone runs within two of the bones below it : by which
artifice they have not only a moveable coherence, but also make a more mul-
tiplied sound, each bone hitting against two others at the same time."

The use of this rattle (since I know no other) I shall give in the words of
Piso, who tells us, Huic tam pernicioso colubro benigna natura cautionis quasi
gratia crepitaculum addidisse videtur, ut illius sonitu admonitus quilibet homo
non solum, sed et qualecunque pecus, vel jumentum, tempestive sibi caveat a
vicino hoste. Both he and Nierembergius and others assert, that every year
there is an addition of a new rattle, which Dr. Grew suspects, for then they
must live 16 years, for so many joints there are observed in some in our reposi-
tory. I have been told in some there have been above 20. These rattles are
placed with their broadest part perpendicular to the body, not horizontal. And
the one is fastened to the last vertebra of the tail by means of a thick mus-
cle under it, and by the membranes that conjoin it to the skin.* I have not
given the figure of the whole skeleton, since what is wanting may be sufficiently
understood by the description, and whoso pleases may view the skeleton

* Piso de Indiae utriusque re Nat. et Med. 1. 5, c. 2, p. SZ-t.— Orig.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 575

(fig. X, b) itself in the repository of the Royal Society, very curiously prepared by
that ingenious young gentleman Richard Waller, Esq. a worthy member of the
society ; whose great assistance to me I must here gratefully acknowledge, as
to the designs, and otherwise ; his curious pencil illustrating what my pen was
often less able to describe.

The Explanation of the Figures.

Fig. 1 . represents that part of the body opened, which contains the lungs,
the heart, the gullet, stomach, &c. — aaa The arteria aspera, or windpipe; B
the upper part of the lungs, which is vesiculous; ccccc the lower part of the
lungs, which makes a large bladder; d the first swelling oesophagus, or false
stomach; eee the oesophagus or gullet, and that part of it where it is straighter;
f the second swelling of the oesophagus, or second false stomach ; g the tnie
stomach ; h a short straightening of the gut, a little below the pylorus ; i the
intestines; k the heart; 1 the auricle; mmm three arteries, whereof there are
two ascending and one descending; nnn three large veins, whereof two are de-
scending and the third ascending, which last seems to divide the liver into
two lobes; oo the liver; p the gall-bladder; q the spleen, as it is called by the
ancients, but by Charas the pancreas; rrr a large blood-vessel that runs in the
midst of the scales of the belly; ss the muscles belonging to the scales of the
belly.

Fig. 2. shows those parts that are contained in the lower part of the body. —
a the intestines cut off just below the pylorus; b the gall-bladder; c the ductus
bilarius, that passes through the middle of the spleen, or as called by Charas,
the pancreas, and enters the large gut; d the spleen, or pancreas; ee the in-
testines which was very large and winding but short; f f the rectum; g the
anus; hh the testes; iiii the vasa deferentia; kk the penes on each side, which
first at the root are conjoined and are thick beset with bristles; 11 the muscles
that serve for drawing in the penes; mm the scent-bags; nn a large blood-
vessel that runs on one side of the left kidney; ooo the emulgents that arise
from the same; ppp the secretory vessels; qq the large blood-vessels of the
right kidney; rrr the emulgents arising from it; sss a round body of blood-
vessels; ttt secretory vessels; uu the ureters.

Fig. 3. represents the penes of one side of a viper. — a the vas deferens,
which afterwards divides and runs to the end of the penes ; b the penes ; c the
muscles which retract the penes.

Fig. 4. represents part of the lungs opened by the trachea. — a aaa the arteria
aspera, divided in the middle; bbb some larger branches of blood-vessels; ccc
the vesiculse, or cells of the lungs.

576 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

Fig. 5. exhibits the head of the rattle-snake, with its mouth opened to show
his teeth, and other parts there. — a the hole of the nostril; b the foramen
which leads to a large cavity, which has no perforation for any nerve inwards,
but yet it is thought to be for hearing; cc the small teeth in the upper jaw,;
dd the large fangs, or poisonous teeth; eee the place where the bladders of
poison lay; f the larynx; g the forked tongue; h the teeth in the lower jaw;
i the place where the lower jaw is divided at the mentum.

Fig. 6. represents the scull. — a the cranium without any sutures; bb the
orbits of the eyes; cc two small bones over the nose; d the gristly or rather
bony sepimentum of the nose; eea small bone that lies between the cranium
and that bone in which is fixed the poisonous fang; ff a cavity in that bone
to which is fastened the poisonous fang, whose outward orifice is represented
in the fifth figure by the letter (b) and is thought to be the ear; g the large
poisonous fang which is fastened to the ear-bone; h the other poisonous teeth,
which are not fixed in the bone but to muscles; ii the upper maxilla, which
contains the small teeth; kk one side of the lower maxilla, with its double row
of teeth, which in the middle seems to be joined by a suture; 1 the distance at
the mentum, between the two sides of the lower maxilla or jaw; mm where
the two maxillas are joined together backwards, and by a tendon are fastened to
another bone, which from its use, and for distinction sake, we call dilatores
maxillarum; nn the dilatores of the jaws; oo a short bone which joins the di-
lators to the scull or cranium ; p the vertebrae of the neck.

Fig. 7. represents the poisonous teeth.

Fig. 8. shows one of the vertebrae of the back. — sl the outward spine of the
vertebra, which is fiat longways ; b the inward spine of the vertebra, which is
round; ca large flat processus for the articulation of the vertebra; d small
transverse processuses for the setting on the ribs; e a round ball, like the head
of the OS femoris, which enters a socket of the lower vertebra, as that does
the acetabulum of the os ischii.

Fig. g. shows one of the vertebrae of the tail. — a the spine towards the back;
bb the two inward spines; cc the transverse spines, analogous to ribs.

Fig. 10. represents the vertebrae of the tail and the musculous flesh which
fastens the first rattle. — a the vertebrae; b the muscle on which is fastened the
rattle.

Fig. 11. exhibits a single rattle, which has three joints: the first and largest
appears when conjoined with others, the two other serve for the fastening on
the succeeding rattle, and are covered by them.

Fig. 1 2. shows the five rattles as joined together.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. b^^

Martini Lister h S. R. Lond. de Fontibus Medicatis Angliie Exercitatio nova et
prior. Eboraci. l682, in 6vo. N° 144, p. 59.

The most rational way, in the opinion of this author, of ascertaining what
the saline contents of the several waters in England are, is to crystallize them.

This crystallization is to be done with great care and accuracy, not at once
in a lump, as it seems most have been satisfied with, but after many experi-
ments, ablutions, dissolutions, and shootings, till you have the whole mass of
salt fairly and singly crystallized.

Then to compare these crystals with the crystals of all the known fossile salts,
to which end these known salts also are to be exactly described from their
fairest crystals.* All which he has carefully done, described, and figured.

Joh. jdlphonsi Borelli Neapol. Math. Projes. Opus Posthumum: Pars prima,
Rom(£ 168O; pars altera, ibidem, 168I. N° 144, p. 62.

In this work the ingenious author first gives an exact description of a muscle,
which within its tendinous or nervous membrane contains several small bundles
of fibres, which constitute an hexagonal square, or triangular prism ; the fi-
bres themselves in each pr in being parallel, and variously connected to each
other; the microscopical appearance of a single fibre representing a cylinder,
not hollow like a reed, jut full of a spongy pith like elder. He gives an ac-
count of the several species of muscles, from the position of their fibres, and
asserts their proper action to be contraction ; adding a modest but solid censure
of Steno's structure of a muscle, and manner of its operation. He confutes
the common opinion, that nature with a very small force lifts up the greatest
weights, the contrary being demonstrated, that the power does 100 or lOOO
times exceed the weight of the limbs that are lifted up by it.

He gives us likewise an account of the wonderful structure of the back-bone,
to the cartilages of which he attributes a greater force than to all the muscles
that contract it, as is evident from this proposition : that if a porter carry on
his back a weight of 120 %, the power nature exercises by the cartilages of the
vertebrae, and the musculi extensores of the back, is equal to the force of
25,585 tt), that of the muscles alone he computes to be 6404 %, and observes

* The method here proposed of ascertaining the saline contents of mineral waters is by no means
satisfactory. The nature and proportions of the saline and other ingredients in such waters can only
be accurately determined by chemical analysis, conducted on the principles laid down, and the ex-
-amples given by Bergman, Kirwan, Westrunib, and others.

VOL. II. 4 E

578 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

that the retention of a joint stretched out is not from the tonical action of an-
tagonist muscles.

Hence he goes on to deliver the various postures of an animal, which he does
by assigning his centre of gravity in all his possible positions. As in a man
stretched out at length, the centre is between the nates and pubes. That a
man cannot well stand on one heel, or the tip of a toe, because in these cases
the line of direction falls without his basis, &c.

That though birds have 1 feet, yet they neither walk nor stand the same way
as a man; which depends on the different structureof their joints. Forj 1, they
differ in the number of the bones. 2. In the form. 3. In the distribution and
make of their muscles. 4. In the joints themselves.

He demonstrates the manner how a bird when sleeping sits firm on a twig,
though the muscles are then inactive; namely, by a strong constriction of its
claws, and consequently a firm comprehension of that twig, necessarily and
mechanically resulting from the gravity of the bird, and the shortness of the
tendons of those muscles that contract the claws.

That quadrupeds cannot stand in their natural prone position on 1 or 2 feet,
because the centre of gravity and its line of propension cannot fall in either, or
between both.

He shows the art of seating upon ice, as also how progression in quadrupeds
is performed, and likewise leaping, in which the vis motiva is to the weight of
the body as 2,900 is to 1 . That in leaping according to a line inclined to the
horizon, at oblique angles, the line described by the centre of gravity shall be
a curve parabola, as being compounded of the straight uniform motion forward,
and the accelerated descent of the heavy body. Next he gives an exact account
of flying, the main stress of which is in the largeness of the muscles that move
the wings, the potentia of which exceeds the weight of the bird 10,000 times;
with many more curious particulars about their several ways of flying.

He describes the action of swimming, and how fishes change their specified
gravity on occasion, by the compression and dilatation of the air contained in
their air-bladders performed by the many and strong muscles about their bellies.
He assigns the reason why man does not swim by instinct as well as other ani-
mals, to be chiefly on account of the gravity of the head so much exceeding
the proportion of that of the rest of the body.

The several ways to live and move under water were described before, as the
diving bell, the leathern cylinder, &c. but that which he seems most to insist
on, is of a brass or copper vesica, about 2 feet diameter, to contain the diver's
head, this to be fastened to a goat's-skin habit fitted exactly to the shape of the
body. He contrives a circulation for the air by pipes within the vesica, and

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5/9

bestows on him an air-pump by his side, by which he may make himself hea-
vier or lighter, in imitation of the engines nature has given to fish for that use.
By this means he avoids the objections the others are liable to, particularly that
of the air, the moisture with which it is clogged in expiration, and by it
made unfit for the same use again, being here taken from it by its circulation
through the pipes, to the sides of which it adheres, and leaves the air as un-
tainted as before.

He concludes this first part with a description of the diving ship, the motion
of which he conceives would be much facilitated by one single oar in the poop,
which should be flexible, and made with a spring, from the vibration of which
the ship should be impelled as fishes are by their tails.

In the second part the author describes the mechanical mode, and assigns the
immediate cause, by which the contraction of the muscles is performed.

Concluding that the muscles are contracted from the inflation of their fibres
by adventitious bodies, as it were by wedges ; and having refused an incorpo-
real natural faculty for the immediate mover, as also any aerial substance, and
rejected the blood filling the pores of the muscles, together with the manner
by which moistened ropes are contracted, he infers, that the ebullition, caused
in the muscles by the concurrence of the blood and succus nerveus, is the im-
mediate cause of the intumescence and contraction, which he confirms and il-
lustrates by arguments and experiments.

He next gives an account of the internal motions of the fluids of the body,
as of the circulation of the blood. Describing the muscular structure of the
heart, and showing how it differs from other muscles by the wonderful texture
of its fibres.

He at last infers that the moving faculty of the heart exceeds the resistance
of the whole blood in the arteries, and of the ligaments that hinder their dila-
tation, which is greater than the force of a weight of 180,000.

He ascribes respiration wholly to the muscles that enlarge the thorax, viz.
the intercostals and the diaphragm, together with the weight and elasticity of
the air. The manner, by drawing up the circumference of the ribs towards the
throat, by directions that make acute angles with the planes of the ribs. The
structure of the thorax in the tortoise, he observes, is remarkable, there being
no divided ribs, but one continued bony arch, and no diaphragm ; and instead
of lungs, 2 long bladders, containing also the blood-vessels. These bags are
not alternately filled and emptied, but constantly remain full of air, which is
not renewed in them but partially, by the external muscles that stick to the
skin, which when inactive make a hollow sinys, but contracted a plane.

Then follow some observations on the nutrition of plants, on the use of the

4 E 2

580 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1682-3.

liver, on the torpedo, on the vulgar error of the porcupine darting its quills,
and lastly on the causes and cure of fevers.

An Account of a Roman Monument found near' South Shields, at the Mouth of
the River Tyne. By Martin Lister, Esq. N° 145, p. 70.

Description of a mutilated supposed Roman altar; the letters mostly defaced,
and illegible.

An Abstract of a Letter from Mr. Anthony Lewenhoeck written to Sir C. W.
Jan. 11, -[681-3, from Delft. N° 145, p. 74.

Having lately met with a book published by a physician of our country,
which treats of human generation, and the egg-branch (or ovarium) as it is
found in women-kind; and not doubting but what is there said is also applicable
to quadrupeds, I examined egg-branches of several lambs of a year old, that had
been several months in the winter kept in a stall for fatting, separated from the
rams. From what I have hitherto found I cannot but wonder why it should be
generally believed, that the tuba fallopiana does draw, or suck down an egg
from the egg-branch, through so narrow a passage as it has; considering also
that some of the eggs were as large as pease, and others as large as the whole
egg-branch : that they were made up of glandular parts interwoven with blood-
vessels, and were shut up so fast in their skins or membranes that I could not
with my nails tear one of them from the egg-branch : that some of them con-
sisted of very irregular and unlike parts, which were in some places inclosed
in particular skins, and had not at all the shape of an egg : that some of them
which stood out beyond the rest were burst open ; and yet when I went to pull
them off, they stuck so fast that the whole egg-branch came along with them.
The smallest eggs, and of a lesser size, were also firmly rooted and fixed in
their skins, and had often a watery substance in them, that besides the sup-
posed eggs of the egg-branch, there were others lying at a distance from it of
an inch and more on each side of the womb, and were included in particular
skins.

My opinion therefore of these eggs is, that they are emunctories, or the
emptyings of some vessels lying near, such as are often found among the mem-
branes, or adhering to the bowels of animals. But as to generation, though I
have formerly been very reserved in declaring my thoughts of it, yet being now
further instructed by manifold experience, I dare venture to affirm it rather to
come from an animalcule, such as I find not only in human seed, but that of
all birds, beasts, fishes, and insects, than an egg. And the rather for that I

troL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 581

find in the seed of a man, as also of a dog, two different sorts of animalcules,
answering the different sexes of male and female.*

I know some men will even swear that they have found the aforesaid eggs in
the tuba fallopiana of beasts. But I need not believe that these round bodies
they have seen in it should be drawn down from the imagined egg-branch,
through the long and very narrow passage of the tuba fallopiana, because some
of the bodies are as large as a pea, nay as the whole egg-branch ; and of a very
firm and compacted substance: but the way through which they should pass id
no wider than the compass of a small pin. Again if it were so as is said, these
bodies would be found, not by chance, but always when searched for immedi-
ately after copulation ; but that is so far from being true, that it is hardly to be
imagined, if we consider how little time is taken up in the copulation of several
animals, as a cow, rabbit, &c. In which so short time nevertheless ought to
be drawn down through a long and narrow passage, a great number of bodies ;
in some cases 2 or 3, in others 6 or 8, and more, according to the number of
foetuses to be produced.

But supposing such bodies there to be found, why may they not be formed
ex residuo seminis masculi, gathered together into a ball or globule; as we see
several other substances in animals that are neither of too thick nor too thin a
consistence, as fat, sanies, &c. Or secondly, there being no part of the body
which is not nourished, and which does not cast off some things that are super-
fluous, why may there not in the womb or tuba be several excretions made,
which by compression on all sides may be brought into a round figure ? This
supposal being true, it will follow that egg-like bodies are also in the womb
or tuba of females that have not been accompanied with the male.

It may be queried, if one animalcule of seed be sufficient to produce a foetus,
why are there so many thousands in one drop of it ? I answer that in an apple-
tree, enduring 100 years and bearing every year a great many thousand bios
soms, which may a great part of them be apples, having each of them 6 or 8
seeds, each seed being placed in a proper soil, and carefully cultivated, is capable
of becoming a tree; yet it may happen that nothing grows from all the apples

• It is scarcely necessary to remark that this hypothesis of generation is now universally exploded.
A living filament furnished by the semen masculinum has been substituted in place of Mr. Lewen-
hoeck's animalcula, by an ingenious philosopher of this country, now no more} but the theory which
at this day has most advocates, is that which supposes that the primordium or germ exists in th^.
female before coition, and that during that act it becomes subjected to the influence and actual con-
tact of the semen masculinum j whereby its previously quiescent parts are stimulated into action ; and
being conveyed (in the manner described in a note at p. 697, volume i, of this Abridgement) from
its former repository (the ovarium) to another receptacle (the uterus) it there undergoes a gradual
developementj and after a time acquires the contour and resemblance of the parent forms.

582 PHILOSOTHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 682-3.

that fall down; whether through want of sun, rankness of grass, weeds, or
other accidents. So in the womb, each animalcule might suffice for a genera-
tion, if the place where it comes to be nursed be fit for it; but the womb being
so large in comparison of so small a creature, and there being so few vessels and
places fit to feed it, and bring it up to a foetus; there cannot be too great a
number of adventurers, when there is so great a likelihood to miscarry.

It may be asked again, why a woman brings forth only 1 or 2 children, since
if there were but two proper places in a uterus, several of the animalcules might
there be fed. I answer, it may happen to these animalcules, as it does to 7 or
8 seeds put into a small hole of the ground ; that seed which puts out the largest
and strongest root, starves all the rest, and becomes a tree. It may be asked
me again, why I make the animalcules found in the seed of several animals to
be of such different sizes, comparatively to the animals they belong to, viz. in
the space of a small sand in the seed of a cock, 50,000; in the row of a cod-
fish 10,000; in the row of a ruft^ which fish is 1000 times less than a cod-fish,
the animalcules as large as the others. Whereas it seems reasonable that the
animalcules ought to be in size to one another, as the creatures in which they
are found; from whence it would follow, that those animalcules which are in
insects, would never be capable of being discovered, because of their exceeding
smallness. I answer that we must satisfy ourselves in these things as well as we
can; for, not to speak of a cocoa-nut, a great wall-nut with its green shell
weighs down 1000 apple tree seeds, and yet the proportion between the trees is
not so great.

In my letter of the third of March l681-2 I described the texture of a flesh
and fish-muscle; but have since examined that of a flea, judging that if I could
find the same filament, I might be positive that the muscles of animals are all
of the same make; having therefore several times separated and exposed to view
that muscle of the breast, to which the leg is partly fastened ; I observed
the same ring-like inden tings in the filaments, that I had seen in other places.
Some appeared to me thicker in the middle then at the ends, as fig. 13, pi. 13,
ABCDEFGH is the description of the filament of a flea broken out of the
breast, from which I perceived the filaments of this insect to grow tapering to-
wards the ends, and lose themselves in a membrane or tendon, like the fila-
ments of the muscle of an ox. Some of the indentings were as CF, but most
throughput were as ABGH. Several times I had an appearance as if a fila-
ment were constituted of several lesser threads joined together, and lying by the
sides of each other. In pursuing my observations, I took some of the flesh of
the legs of the flea, and found it like that of the breast; here I counted 12 of

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 583

these before named filaments, and some threads without indentings which I
conceived might be vessels.

I also with much trouble took out the testicles of a flea, and placed them be-
fore my microscope, and drew out the figure as well as I could, as fig. 14,
ABC D is the testicle, AF and DE are the vasa deferentia. When the testicles
were first taken out they were of a dark colour, but in less than -5V o^ ^ minute
their moisture was evaporated, and then they became crumpled, which I have
here represented as well as I could.

I also searched for the vessels having as it were rings about them, and am
satisfied they cannot be air vessels, but rather arteries; for I saw them not only
encompass the guts, but spread over and among the eggs. The sting or snout
of the flea, or rather the sheath in which it is kept, had teeth on each side like
a saw ; and may not unfitly be compared to a quill that is split ragged. When
the sting is enclosed in the sheath, the teeth on each side go between each
other. The length of this sheath is about 3 diameters of the thickness of a
hair,

I have made many attempts the last autumn, to find out in what time the
worm coming from the egg of a flea, would become a full grown flea. The
eggs of a flea kept in a warm place, were hatched in 4 days, and became worms,
which I endeavoured to bring up, but notwithstanding all my endeavours I could
keep them no longer alive than 11 days. When I placed about the half of a
small fly in the glass by the worms for their food ; the part of the fly caused
such a steam on the glass that the worms being hairy were entangled in the
moisture, and remained immovable till they died. When the worms were 12
days old, they were about the length of 4 eggs, and the thickness of one.
Since I could bring lip no worms, I took some which I thought had attained
their full growth, and observed the same to spend 8 or 10 days in spinning their
web, and then they stripped off their skin and became nymphae. These
nymphae I saw move on the 4th day, though they were clear and white : on
the 6th they were red about the head: on the iOth they broke their case, which
was a very thin skin, and leaped into the glass, living there without food for the
space of 7 days.

I also took some flesh from the breast of a louse, and found the flesh threads
of the same make as those of the flea. I took also the flesh from the feet of a
gnat, and found that of the same make with the former. But perceiving the
legs and body of the gnat to be furnished with ver}' fine feathers, I have caused
them to be drawn as fig. ) 5, pi. 13. The wing also of the gnat being adorned
with feathers, I have drawn that too, as fig. 16, which is a wing as it appears
to the naked eye. Fig. 17, ABC is the same represented in a larger propor-

584 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

tion, to show that not only the whole circumference of the wing, as here 17,
is beset with great and small feathers, as fig. 18: but also the nerves that stiffen
the wing. The film of the wing which is between the nerves, seems by the
microscope to be full of a great many small risings ; but upon a stricter exami-
nation, they are really small hairs, as fig. 19, where a beginning was made to
represent the whole wing : ABC are the feathers, and A DEC are the hairs on
the film.

A certain physician having told me that several people afflicted with agues,
had been cured by the use of sal volatile oleosum, which had attenuated and
rarefied their blood. I resolved to make what observations I could of the mix-
ture of that salt with blood. And therefore pricking my finger with a needle,
I put the first time two parts of blood to one of salt ; a second time equal parts
of each : the blood turned immediately of a more lively red colour, as blood
usually does when mixed with fair water.

The parts of that blood that lay nearest the salt, changed colour first, and
by degrees those further distant. But taking my microscope to observe it, I
found the blood globules each to be dissolved into 6 distinct globules.

I then took four parts of salt, &c. and one of blood, and viewing it as quick
as I could with my glass, I found some of the blood globules much diminished
in -i- of a minute, but in -|- of a minute they were wholly dissolved. I saw once
20 blood globules at a distance from the rest; but in continuing to count them,
they came first to 18, then 16, after to 3 or 2, which also were dissolving. —
There was also here and there a globule that would not dissolve; nor with a
very little salt would any.

A Correction of the ITheory of the Motion of the 4th Satellite of Saturn. By
Mr. Edmund Halley. N° 145, p. 82.

I here send you an astronomical account of the most remote of all the planets
of our vortex, and of the satellite of Saturn, discovered in the year l655 by M.
Huygens, who in that accurate treatise of his, Systema Saturnium, from page
25 to 34, gives the theory of its motion, as well as the shortness of the interval
of time between his observations would admit.

The late conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn giving me frequent occasions of
viewing them both, with a telescope that I have of about 24 feet, and pretty
good of that length, I easily remarked this satellite of Saturn, and having found
it in a convenient position to determine its place, I perceived that Huygens's
numbers were considerably run out, and about 15 degrees in 20 years too swift;
this made me resolve more nicely to inquire into its period ; and accordingly I

VOL. XIII.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 580

waited till I had gotten a competent number of observations, the most con-
siderable whereof are these.

An. l682, November 13d. 13h. 00m. P.M. the satellite appeared on the
north-side of Saturn, and a perpendicular let fall from it on the transverse dia-
meter of the ring, fell upon the middle of the dark space of the following ansa;
and the same night, igh. 00m., it had passed the conjunction, and the per-
pendicular fell exactly on the western edge of the globe of Saturn, as in fig. 1 ,
pi. 18. The northern latitude, and retrograde motion, made it evident that the
satellite was then in perigaeo.

Again, November 21 d. l6h. 15m. this satellite of Saturn was on his south-
side, the perpendicular on the line of the ansae fell on the middle of the dark,
space of the western ansa, and the same night, igh. 00m., the perpendicular
fell precisely on the centre of Saturn, and the distance therefrom was somewhat
less than one diameter of the ring, as in fig. 2, by this it was evident that the
satellite was in apogaeo.

I observed it in apogaeo again on the 24th of January l683, at 8h. 00m.
P.M. the perpendicular on the line of the ansae fell exactly on the western limb
of the globe of Saturn, and at Qh. 30m. P.M. the said perpendicular fell within
the globe more than half way to the centre, and the distance from the line of
the ansae towards the south seemed much about one diameter of the ring.
Fig. 3.

Lastly, February gd. l683, 8h. 10m. P.M. it was again in apogaeo, and I
could by no means discern towards which side it inclined most, nor whether the
transverse diameter of the ring, or the distance of the satellite therefrom were
the greater ; so that at that time it was precisely in apogaeon. Fig. 4.

To compare with these, I chose two out of those of M. Huygens, which
seemed the most to be confided in; the first made 1659, March 14d. st. n.
12h. 00m. at the Hague; when the satellite appeared about one diameter of the
ring under Saturn, but it was gone so far to the westward, that he concluded,
that about 4 hours before, or 7h. 40m. at London, it had been in perigaeo.
Fig. 5.

Again, March 22d. 1659, lOh. 45 m. the satellite was a whole diameter
above the line of the ansae, and the perpendicular thereon fell nearly on the
extremity of the eastern ansa. See fig. 6.

By the first of my observations it appears that the satellite was in perigaeo
1682, November 13d. I7h. 00m. nearly, at which time Saturn was 3* 21**
39' from the first star of Aries, in the ecliptic, but the earth reduced to Saturn's
equinoctial, and the satellite was 9^ 23° 46' from the same first star of Aries.
And March 4d. 1659, 7h. 40m. Saturn's place in- the ecliptic was 6» 0° 41',

VOL. II. 4 F

586 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3.

but the earth reduced, and consequently the satellite, in 11* 28° 18' from the
first of Aries. The interval of time is 8655 days gh. 20m.; in which the
satellite had made a certain number of revolutions to the fixed stars, and besides
9' 25" 28', or 205° 28', whose complement to a circle 64° 32', is 2 days, 20h.
36m. motion of the satellite, according to Huygens. So that 8658 days 5h.
56m. or 12467876 minutes of time, is the time of some number of entire re-
volutions; and dividing that interval by 15 days 22h. 39m. or 22959m. (the
period of Huygens) the quotient 543 shows the number of revolutions; and
again dividing 12467876m. by 543, the quotient 22961-^1^^1- or 15 days 22h.
41 m. 6s. appears to be the true time of this satellite's period. Hence the diurnal
motion will be 22° 34' 38'^ 18'", and the annual besides 22 revolutions 10*
20° 43'. Having made tables to this period, I found that in the apogaeon ob-
serv^ation of Huygens the satellite was above 3° faster than by my calculus, and
that in the three other observations of my own, being likewise in the superior part,
it was 24- degrees slower than by the same calculation. Now it is evident that
these differences must arise from some eccentricity in the orbit of this satellite,
and that in March 1659, the apocronion, as I may call it, was somewhere in
the oriental semicircle, and that in November l682 it was in the western semi-
circle, and supposing the apocronion fixed, it must necessarily be between 9'
23° 46' and 11* 28° 18' from the first star of Aries, that being the common
part between those two semicircles : and because the difference was greater in
Huygens's observation than in mine, it will follow that the linea apsidum, or
apocronion, should be nearer to 9* 23° 46' than to 11* 28° 18.' I will sup-
pose 10* 22° 00' from the first star of Aries, which also happens to be the place
of Saturn's equinox, and the greatest equation about 2 4- degrees. On account of
this inequality, the mean motion of the satellite will be found about 2° 45'
slower in 23-i- years, or 7 m. in a year; whence I state the annual motion at 10*
20° 36' above 22 revolutions, and the correct epocha for the last day of Decem-
ber 1682, at noon, in the meridian of London, 9* 10° 15' from the first star
of Aries ; from which elements I compose the following table.*

The other two satellites of Saturn discovered by Signer Cassini at Paris,
Anno 1672 and 1673, I must confess I could never yet see. I have been told
that they disappear for about f of Saturn's revolution, and were only to be seen
when the ansae were very small, it being supposed that the light which proceeds
from the ansae, when considerably opened, might hide these satellites. In the
year l685, when the ansae will be quite vanished, will be a proper time to look
for them, that so we may bring their motion to rule, and know where to find

* These are omitted^ as of no use now.

TOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TAAN8ACTION8, oHJ

them, for want of which knowledge it is likely they are at present not to be
iound.

j4 Lunar Eclipse observed at the Royal Observatory at Greemvkh, Feb. i-}-, l682^
P. M, By Mr. John Flamsteedy Mathematician to the King. N° 145, p. 89.
Translated from the Latin.

At Sh. Im. P. M. with a tube of 16 feet, I took the moon's diameter 6702
= 33' ^5"; then the distance of her nearest limb from the nearest limb of
Meraeotis 145 = O' 43''; but the distance of the limb of the same spot from the
moon's remoter limb was 6575 = 32' 48". Also by means of the same tube
I obtained the times, when the obscuration reached the moon's centre, and
when the radius subtended its arcs in the periphery that were either deficient or
after they were restored : from whence the middle may be deduced, perhaps
not less accurately, than from the compared observations of the beginning and
end, the immersion and emersion.

The principal phases observed by Mr. Flamsteed and Mr. Halley at Green-
wich, and by Mr. Haines at London, were as follow : the times, by pendulum
clocks, corrected.

Phases, by Mr. Flamsteed. Halley. Haines,

h. m. s. h. m. s. h. m. s.

TTlie beginning of eclipse r • • • 9 12 32 9 13 4 9 12 18

Sixth part of the periphery obscured. .. . 9 18 10

The moon's centre, or 6 digits 9 38 48

Sixth part of the periphery bright 10 7 28

Total immersion 10 10 14 10 10 11 10 948

Beginning of emersion 1 1 47 38 1 1 47 9 1 1 47 48

Sixth part of the periphery bright 11 50 2 1 1 50 7

The moon's centre, or 6 digits 12 18 28

Sixth part of the periphery obscure .... 12 39 6

The end, doubtful 12 45 10 12 44 48

Ended certainly 12 45 38 12 44 35 12 45 18

Account of a Murrain in Stvitzerland, and its Care. By Dr. Winder*

N° 145, p. 93.

In l682, on the borders of Italy a murrain infected the cattle, which spread
into Switzerland, the territories of Wirtemberg, and other provinces, making
great destruction among the cattle. The contagion seemed to propagate itself
in the form of a blue mist, which fell upon those pastures where the cattle

4 F 2

t

558 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. I ANNO l682-3.

grazed, insomuch that whole herds returned home sick; being very dull, for-
bearing their food, and most of them would die in 24 hours. Upon dissection
there were discovered large and corrupted spleen, sphacelous and corroded
tongues, and some had angina maligna. Those persons who carelessly managed
their cattle, without a due regard to their own health, were themselves infected,
and died like their beasts.

This contagion may perhaps proceed from some noxious exhalations emitted
from the earth, by three distinct earthquakes, perceived here in the space of
one year.

The method of cure for the cattle was this. — As soon as there was any sus-
picion of the contagion on any one of the herd, the tongue of that beast was
carefully examined. If they found any aphthae or blisters, whether white, yellow
or black, they were obliged to rub, scratch and tear the tongue with a silver in-
strument, till it bled ; then they wiped away the blood and corruption with new
unwashed linen. This done, a lotion for the tongue was used, made of salt
and good vinegar.

The antidote for the diseased cattle, and the medicine for the sick, is the
same, and is thus described. Take of soot, gunpowder, brimstone, salt, equal
parts, and as much water as is necessary to wash it down ; give a large spoonful
for a dose.

In a Postscript it is further observed as follows : — -
I lately received an account from two ingenious travellers, who assured me
the contagion had reached their quarters on the borders of Poland, having
passed quite through Germany, and that the method used in our relation pre-
served and cured their cattle. They told me the contagion was observed to
make its progress daily, spreading near two German miles in 24 hours. This
they say was certainly observed by many curious persons, that it continually
without intermission made its progress, and suffered no neighbouring parish to
escape ; but that it did not at the same time infect places at great distances.
They added that cattle secured at rack and manger were equally infected with
those in the field.*

• In some of the subsequent vols, of these Transactions we shall have occasion to notice other com-
munications on the subject of the pestilential disorder or murrain among cattle ; for abating the viru-
lence of which, inoculation has of late years been resorted to in Holland and other parts of the con-
tinent, with marked success. This practise is strongly recommended by Dr. Layard, in a paper in-
serted in the 50th volume of the Transactions. The spreading of the epizootic contagion is to be pre-
vented, and its suppression effected, by means similar to those employed in the case of human con-
tagions 5 viz. by an immediate separation of the infected from the healthy cattle) by fumigation of the
stalls; and by strict attention to cleanliness and ventilation.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. BSQ

On the formation of Salt and Sand from Brine. Communicated by Dr. Robert

Plot, S.R.S. N° 145, p. 96.

Having strained a quantity of the brine, from the pits in Staffordshire,
through 8 folds of fine Holland, and as many more of finer cambric, yet no-
thing was left in this very close colander, but a little black dust, which was im-
puted only to the foulness of the water, it being nothing like sand; for having
examined the cloth both with the fingers and a microscope, there was found no
more of sand than if they had percolated the clearest spring water; and yet this
brine is found to hold in boiling at least \ of as much sand as salt, i. e. the brine
that suffices to make a bushel of salt, yields also at least a peck of sand.

But notwithstanding this experiment, it did not seem necessary to suppose
that the sand was generated in the boiling, but might rather be originally there;
for before straining it there was observed in the water, by the help of a micro-
scope, a great multitude of very minute animals, much smaller than those in
pepper- water, swimming about in it, together with many small transparent
plates, some a little larger than the animalcules, and some less, but all of a
rectangular oblong figure, though some indeed seemed very near a square,
which were found also in the water after straining, as thick as before, the pores
or rather interstices between the threads of the Holland and cambric, though
they were extremely fine, appeared in the microscope to be 20 times greater
than either the animalcules or plates. And these were judged to be the original
particles both of the salt and sand ; which, as the water evaporates in boiling
might gather together till they made up such a visible course body, as the
greater corns of each are. And this suspicion was confirmed in a little time;
for observing with an excellent microscope some of the strong brine which
drops from the baskets or barrows, when the salt is first put into them, though
at first it looked like clear water, yet on a more accurate observation it appeared
exceedingly full of these oblong particles, which were perceived to gather together
and unite to form larger parcels; and, as the water dried off from the glass to
grow far larger till they appeared to equal, and not much unlike a large sized
diamond: which induced a suspicion that the sand might be also generated after
the same manner, it appearing to be only an insipid salt, composed of parts not
so sharp pointed as the others, but rounder and blunter angled, and conse-
quently not so pungent on the tongue. Yet this sand could not be made to
dissolve in water to any considerable quantity : and though the salt might dis-
solve in a small degree, yet it did not form itself again into plates.

590 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1682-3".

jiccount of New Books.

7. Hortus Indicus Alalabaricus, continens Regni Malaharici apud Indos celeherrimi
omnis generis Plantas Rariores, &c. A7nsteL Anno, ] 678. N'' 145, p. lOO.

This excellent work, giving an account of most rare and curious trees and
shrubs of the fruitful and flourishing country of Malabar in the East Indies, by
their descriptions, virtues, and whatever else has been observed remarkable, has
been especially promoted by the ingenious governor of the same H. Henry Van
Rheede, assisted by father Mathew, a Carmelite, and by the present author
John Casiarius, who supplying former defects, has compiled this work, with
very apt descriptions, and caused the most essential parts of each, viz. the
flowers, fruits, and their cases, to be also engraved in large copper cuts, gene-
rally as large as nature, 57 in number, each whole sheet opened containing but
one plant and its parts, most excellently done, having had the aid of most skil-
ful painters on the place; to which are added the Latin, Malabaric, Arabic and
Braman's names. And for that part concerning the virtues, the author has set
forth in their own language, and with the translations, the testimonies of the
most learned men of the country.

And for the better completion of this laudable work, that most curious and
exact person Dr. A. Seyn, physic and botanic professor lately at Leyden, has
been pleased wonderfully to satisfy the world and show his great learning in
illustrating this work, with his notes upon each plant, and his thoughts of the
same wherein he has shown what authors have formerly written of it, and
what is new, and giving a great character of the work.

Horti Indici Malaharici pars secunda, &c. Amstel. 1679. N° 145, p. 104.

The second part of this work has been especially collected and promoted by
that great senator Hen. Van Rheede, to whose counsel and assistance the be-
forementioned John Casiarius being called, has continued his expressions of
skill, in describing the rare and unknown plants of that country. But the loss
of that curious and learned annotater D. A. Seyn, whose ingenious notes so
illustrated the former book, being snatched away by untimely death in the
flower of his age, had rendered the work imperfect, had not an ingenious suc-
cessor D. I. Commelin risen up in his stead, who has given good demonstration
of his reading and learning, by comparing and adjusting these exotic rarities to
what others have formerly said of them, and added his notes upon the same.

In this part are 56 large and excellent figures, drawn and cut exactly to na-
ture each one employing a whole sheet, holding but one plant or part of a
tree, as in the first part. W^hen this writer has occasion to express a tree, he

t'OL. Xm.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. * SQl

makes a part of a large trunk or body cut off, with a limb or branch springing
out, bearing the leaves, flowers, or fruits, or what is observable, which seems a
much more expressive way, than to contract a whole large tree to so small a
compass as other sculptures usually do.

Horti Indici Malabarici pars tertia, &c. Amstel. An. l682. N° 145, p. 106.

This third part the before-mentioned H. Van Rheede has dedicated to the
Indian King, in whose dominions he lived several years, and there collected,
and made his observation of what that country afforded, hoping by his accuracy
that his account of so many new and wonderful plants and trees may not be ap-
prehended an ungrateful work, since the most part are such as have not been
mentioned by any Kuropean autlujr.

The two first parts of this work were especially compiled by the reverend and
skilful D. J. Casiar, a divine in the city of Cochin, where then lived D. P.
Herman, the present botanic professor at Leyden, a person of excellent experi-
ence and skill, and no small instrument in this work by his assistance; and since
the death of D. Casiar, before the finishing of the work, D. Van Rheede took
to his assistance the well experienced D. J. Munnicks, now professor at Utrecht,
for the prosecution and completion of his design, to which D. J. Commelin has
added his curious notes, but tells us that this third volume should have been
more properly the second, consisting mostly of trees as the first did; and the
second should have been the last, containing shrubs and plants, in which are
64 whole sheet plates of sculptures well executed.

//. Epistola ad D. Joelem Langelottum De Alcali et Acidi Insufficientia pro prin-
cipiorum corporum Naturalium munere gerendo, conscripta d. Johanne Bohn
Phil, ac Med. Doct. et in Acad. Lips. Prof. P. N° 145, p. 110.

///. Jacohi Barneri, D. Spiritus Vini sine Aeido, &c. Demonstratio curiosa.

N^ 145, p. ni.

The Lumbricus Latus ;* or, a Discourse read before the Royal Society, concern-
ing the jointed Worm. By Edward Tyson, M. D. Col. Med. Lond, nee non
Reg. Societ. Soc. N'^ 146, p. 113.

The consideration of insects, and their manner of generation, as it is a subject
of curious speculation ; so of late it has been much illustrated by the laborious
researches of many inquisitive persons : whose endeavours^ though they haVe

* Taenia Solium. Lin.

5g2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683,

much advanced the doctrine of univocal generation, and bid very fair for the
exploding of that common error, of their production from putrefaction, yet one
great difficulty still remains with me, how to account for several of those that
are bred in animal bodies ; not such as we may suppose to be hatched from the
eggs of the like kind, that are received with the food or other ways, but of
whcih we cannot meet with a parallel, or of the same species, out of the body,
in the whole world as is known besides. I shall instance only in two, the Lum-
bricus Latus, and Teres. Of the former I shall give at present only these re-
marks ; wherein its difference from any other does more remarkably appear ;
1. being fiat ; 2. jointed after a peculiar manner ; 3. the great disproportion of
both extremes; 4. the vast length it is often of; 5. the head so remarkably beset
with hooked spikes ; 6. what has never that I know of, been remarked of this
or any other insect or animal in the world beside, the great number of mouths
it has; more than the poets feigned Briareus had hands, or Argus eyes, viz. in
every joint one. 7- That any part of the body being broken off from the rest,
should still remain alive, and thrive.

My other instance is the lumbricus teres intestinalis ; which, though it holds
more analogy with those called intestina terrae, or common earth-worms, as to
the outward shape and form ; yet within are vastly different; as by comparing
the anatomy of both will appear. And I very much question, as to the con-
trivance of the inward organs, whether we can meet with any parallel of it in
the world, out of the microcosm, or animal bodies, besides. There is nothing
more plain, than that these worms are propagated by an univocal generation;
there being so perfect a distinction of sexes, male and female ; and the organs
belonging to each so curiously contrived, so conspicuous and plain, that they
may further illustrate the late inventions of some, and seem to show how solicit-
ous nature is in preserving and propagating the meanest species. But as in this
worm, there is a most evident discrimination of sexes ; so in earth-worms, there
is nothing of this nature to be found, but they are perfect hermaphrodites, each
worm having the organs belonging both to male and female ; which is common
to them with leeches, snails, &c.

I shall begin with the jointed worm ; and shall pursue the method I have
already given, in more strictly considering those particulars, which I have laid
down, to discriminate this from all other sorts of worms. And the first is, its
being flat; hence called lumbricus latus, and by Hippocrates, Ta*i/i«, i.e. fascia,
and by some in English, the tape-worm. This flatness of the body, sufficiently
distinguishes it from the others, which are usually bred in the body ; and are
either short and small, and then called ascarides; or longer, as the teretes;

TOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQS

which are so called xxrU^o^^nv, though the former likewise are round. Nor is
there any out of the hody that I know of, that are thus flat.

The second particular I observed was its joints. From these large incisures
of the body, a great number or genus of animals have the name of insects.
In earth-worms, leeches, &c. the annuli, which make up the length of the
body, are very remarkable; but much different from those in our present sub-
ject; those being more proportionate to one another, and not of so unequal a
length. And in the teretes and ascarides, the surface of the body seems more
even and smooth, and not divided after this manner. These joints are so con-
nected, that the lines or extreme edges of the former come over the latter ;
which is to be well observed, and may direct us to that part or extreme, where
we may suppose the head to be placed. These edges of the former joint, which
shoot over the latter, in some I have observed to be plain and smooth ; in others
crenated and indented ; in all, by drawing it through one's fingers from the tail
to the head, there is found a great roughness ; but if the other way, from the
head to the tail, it seems smooth.

3. Many who have observed this worm, take notice of the difference of its
extremes ; how much larger one is than the other ; but not well considering the
setting on of the joints, they have often mistaken the head for the tail ; for in
all I have hitherto observed, I constantly found that extreme where the head is
set on, if we may allow it to have any, much smaller than the other; sometimes
not half a quarter so broad ; in others less or greater, often according to the
length of the worm ; but in all I take notice, if they are of any considerable
length, that the joints towards the head are vastly shorter than towards the
tail. For in one I have by me (fig. 1, pi. I9,) 24 feet long, there about live
joints make an inch; whereas the latter joints here are above an inch long; but
in some I have taken out of dogs, there where 30 or 40, sometimes above 60
annuli, which, towards the head, make up but the length of an inch ; whereas
towards the tail 6 or 7 joints equalled that measure, and sometimes 3 ; so that
gradually the joints seem to increase, both in length and breadth, as they ap-
proach the tail. But withal it must be observed, that according to the corru-
gation or extension of these joints, their dimensions will be altered; which is
most apparent in them when alive. That likewise there is a great difference of
these joints in the various species of this worm; for I think there are more sorts
than one. And as to the differences of them, there are these I have taken notice
of. 1. That in most the joints gradually and very sensibly increase in length.
2. In some, those orifices, which I take for mouths, were placed about the
middle of the joints, on the edges ; in others, about the middle of the flat of
the worm, near the jointings. 3. These juttings, or lips of the upper joints,
VOL. II. 4 G

594 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

over the lower, in some were plain ; in others crenated ; in others^ the great
protuberatings at the side I'endered the whole worm serrated. 4. Usually the
same joint is much of a size throughout; but the upper extreme something
less than the lower. But in one I took out of a dog, I observed that towards
the tail, the upper part of the joint, by which it was fastened to the foregoing
joint, was very slender ; in the middle broad ; and towards the other extreme
grew taper again ; so that it well enough resembled the figure, (fig. 6, pi. IQ,)
which Cornel. Gemma has given of it. Not that the whole worm, as he has
made it, was so ; but only some of the last joints. And in another I took out
of the same dog I could not observe the same thing ; as neither did I in a third,
I took out of another dog, which was about two yards long; whereas these were
each but about a foot or a foot and half long.

4. As to the length of this worm, it is sometimes as long as all the guts; not
that it lies extended straight the length of the guts, as those might think, who
fondly imagined it was nothing else but a mucous skin, orspolium of the same:
but it lies convoluted in several places; so that it often vastly exceeds the whole
length of the guts themselves. Platerus observed one 40 feet long ; and Pliny
says, they are sometimes 300 feet or more. Thaddaeus Dunus saw voided by a
woman one piece of this worm 5 yards long ; and another, above 20 yards long.
Yet in neither he could observe either the head or the tail. But what Olaus
Borrichius tells us is remarkable; that a patient of his, in a year's time, has
voided 800 feet of this sort of worm, but in several pieces; and that 200 feet
of it he kept by him ; and that hitherto he has not met with the head. For
the patient observed, that always in the voiding it, he perceived it break off;
that he has not yet come to the end; and still goes on in voiding the same.
Which I could parallel with an instance of a person here in town, once my pa-
tient, who has voided vast quantities of this worm, for several years together ;
but in several pieces, 2, 3, 4, 6, or more yards long; but all put together,
would much exceed the length of that of Borrichius. Tulpius says he showed,
in the Anatomy Theatre, 40 yards of this worm ; which was voided by one in
two days time. However I question whether all those pieces which are voided
by the same person, may be always reputed parts of the same worm, or of dif-
ferent. Hippocrates, or whoever was the author of that book ascribed to him,
asserts, that it is bred in the child whilst yet in the womb. But Spigelius, on
inquiry both of the midwives, in Germany and Italy, could never be informed
that they observed these worms in new-born infants. But as to Spigelius's
reasons why there should be no more than one in the body at a time, I shall
only give this answer, that on dissection of a dog I observed two entire ones ;
but each not much above a foot long. So that the answer he gives to that

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQS

observation of Forestus, who mentions twelve voided at the same time, that
they were only parts of the same worm, though often it may be true, yet
sometimes it may be otherwise; especially, where we see such prodigious quan-
tities are voided of them. However this is undeniable, and must be allowed,
that this worm is vastly long, which plainly appears even by those pieces we see
of them ; for, besides the instances already given, Simon Schultzius mentions
one 7 yards long, and another 9 yards. Clusius tells us, that the Duke of
Austria's cook voided pieces of this worm, 6, 12, and 15 yards long. Jacobus
Oethasus measured one 18 yards long. Alexander Camerarius has seen them
above 20 yards long. In the palace at Tiguri is kept the figure of one 18 feet
long: and abundance of more instances I could give were it needful.

But I shall describe that piece of one (fig. 1, pi. 19,) I have by me, voided
by a young man about 20 years of age, on the use of an emulsion of the cold
seeds, who plainly perceived it alive, and to move ; and having put it in a wide
mouthed glass, it often endeavoured by raising its body to get out ; but the
cold water into which it was put afterwards soon killed it. I measured it,
and found it 24 feet, or 8 yards long. In it I numbered 507 joints. Its colour
was extreme white, being turgid with chyle; its body flat, about the thickness
of half a crown, where thickest; and the joints towards the tail about 4- of an
inch broad ; those toward the head about ^ as broad as those towards the tail,
and here the joints were not ^ of an inch long, whereas those at the tail were
of a full inch long, and something more ; and from the head they seemed gra-
dually to increase in length. The joints much of a wideness throughout; and
the jetting edges of the former over the latter usually plain and even ; unless
where the contraction of the body had rendered them a little crimpled. The
flats of both sides just alike; and without any spots, protuberances, or any
thing remarkable, which might distinguish them, or be observed, only a smooth
surface ; but about the middle of the edges of each joint I observed a protube-
rating orifice, which would easily enough admit a hog's bristle, and was open,
and apparent to the naked eye. These orifices were placed for the most part
alternately, in one joint on the right side, in the following on the left. But
sometimes I have observed them in 2, more seldom in 3 succeeding joints of
the same side; but never in one joint more than once. These orifices I take at
present for so many mouths. But since I have here mentioned of what length
they have been observed in man, I shall also add how long those were I have
seen in dogs. For though they are to be met with only in the animal kingdom;
yet in abundance of the subjects of this, and those too of different species, they
are very frequent ; in fishes, as in the pike, whitings, bleakes, crabs, hferrings,
&c. and upon this score sometimes they prove a great damage to the merchants,

4 g2

596 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1083.

as Platerus observes, they being forced to throw them away. In bleakes in the
sunimer time, if you open those that leap and tumble on the water, from the
torment they feel within, you almost constantly meet with this worm, which is
a thing well known to the watermen. In oxen often they are observed likewise,
not so much in calves; but in dogs very frequently; which Platerus makes to be
another sort of the taenia, and calls it ligula. Simon Schultzius mentions a lap
dog, that in a short time voided 9 yards of this worm in several pieces.

I have oftentimes here seen them myself, but shall mention those only I
found in dissection ; as I met with the first time two. There was indeed another
piece, which I take only as broken off from one of the former, because here
both extremes were pretty large, and the joints throughout proportionably long.
But in the two others the disproportion was very remarkable ; for besides ob-
serving here their heads thick beset with hairs or small spikes, which I shall
afterwards describe, I took notice that this extreme if extended, was very
slender; and when a little contracted, the joints so very small, that they were
scarcely discernible by the naked eye; but where I could better distinguish them,
between 30 or 40 made the length of an inch ; but towards the other extreme
or tail, in one 4, in the other 6 or 7 joints made that length ; one of these
worms was scarcely a foot long; the other not a foot and a half.

In another dog I since dissected, I found another worm, (fig. 2, pi. I9,) with
just the same head, but about 5 feet long ; towards the head in this 60 joints
scarcely made an inch, but at the tail about 3 equalled that space; and the joints
here were about a quarter of an inch broad ; and in the sides of the joints in
this, I plainly perceived those orifices I at present call the mouths.

5. The head of the Nile does not seem to be more perplexed and obscure to
the ancients than that of this worm, which has created as many controversies
among anatomists of late, as that has with geographers of old.

Welschius tells us, that the first that discovered and gave these worms a
head, was Tulpius; and since that, Jo. Mich. Fehr. I shall therefore give
their observations of it; and then deliver what I have observed myself. Nic.
Tulpius, a noted physician, and burgomaster at Amsterdam, in the former
editions of his Medical Observations, makes this worm to be biceps; (fig. 3,
pi. 1 9,) and to have two heads, placed like the horns of a snail ; not that he
observed it so himself, but had the relation of it, and figure, from Henricus a
Rugen, a kinsman of Augerius Clusius, who voided it. To this I shall add,
what Joh. Rhodius has delivered; which favours this opinion of a double head;
where he tells us, that Adrianus Spigelius on dissection of a lap-dog, which
died of an epilepsy in the year 1622, found the intestines full of this sort of
worms, sed imprimis latus lumbricus iis adhsesit, capite bifido, qui verara

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SQ/

candidi coloris fasclam referebat; but notwithstanding these authorities, I shall
still suspend my belief of these double heads till better information. And indeed
Tulpius himself seems to me to suspect the truth of the observation, having in
the last edition of his book left it out, without taking any notice of it, and
given another very different ; and in the same figure he has erased the former
heads, and clapped on a new one, to the old body (fig. 4, pi. IQ,) quite different
from what was before. But by all I can see in his figures, I cannot but think
he is at the wrong end ; for by considering the prominence of the joints, the
placing of its spots, and the difference of its ends, I should rather look for it
at the smallest extreme, which he makes the tail, than the other where he has
now placed it.

Jo. Michael Fehr, a German Curioso, in his Treatise de Hier^ picrA sive de
Absinthio, in the year 1644, observed in a piece voided by a patient, about 6
yards long, a head miich different from that of Tulpius; he describes this
worm cum collo sensim angustiore, et rotnndiore in minutissimum capitulum
atrum, et verrucosum, trium papaveris seminum apte conjunctorum formam
exprimens, desinentem: cujus iconem ob raritatem hie addidimus. (fig. 5.)
Indeed I must confess that account I had from the women who first observed it,
and the patient who voided that worm I mentioned to have by me 8 yards long,
and was given me by my worthy friend Mr. Houghton an apothecary, seemed
agreeable to this; though, when I first saw it, I could observe no such thing;
and therefore am apt to think it was only some thrumbs of the inward coat of
the intestine, which might stick to the hooks here, which might make this
figure. For, in the heads of all I have yet had an opportunity of seeing, I
could never observe any such thing.

I shall therefore now deliver my observations of the heads of this worm as I
have seen them, in three several ones I have taken out of the bodies of dogs
on dissection. One was in a dog I opened at our private meetings, at the Ana-
tomical Theatre of the College of Physicians, where I observed this worm alive
in the ileum ; not lying straight, but in many places winding and doubling.
Having observed how the joints were, I traced it up, by carefully opening the
intestine to the smallest extreme, where I expected the head to be ; and which
lay towards the duodenum; whereas the broader end was downward towards the
rectum; and this broad end was free, without adhering; whereas that smaller
extreme stuck so firmly, and had fastened itself to the inward coat of the intes-
tine, that it was not without some trouble, by gently raising it with my nail,
that I freed it from its adhesion. Having lifted it up, I carefully viewed it; and
observed neither that biceps in Tulpius's first figure, nor the head like a tricoccos
as in Mich. Fehr, but a very slender body; which being alive, it would some-

5Q8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

times shoot out a considerable length; at others retract it in again, and so very

much alter its figure, by becoming broader.* But whilst I was doing this, by

its riggling its body it happened to fall off my finger ; it presently took hold

again, and gave me as much trouble to free it a second time from its adhesion

as at the first. For the present I put it into spirit of wine, that I might more

carefully view it with a microscope at home. And in doing this, making use

of some extraordinary good ones, it very plainly appeared as is represented in

my 8th fig. thick beset with two orders of spikes, or hooks, whereof the larger

rose from the middle, spreading themselves over the edges of the circumference;

the other, which were less, issuing out about the midway, and were shorter,

as is seen in this figure, and are represented sideways in^ the gth fig. I could

not on the strictest inquiry, -and with extraordinary glasses too, perceive any

orifice here, which we may suppose to be the mouth ; only a little indenting in

the centre, occasioned by the issuing out of the spikes there. This end was

not perfectly flat, but a little globous ; and I could perceive by the swelling a

little below on the neck, and wrinkling of the skin, how it shot out, and

contracted its neck, as I observed it when alive: for some little space here, I could

not observe with the glasses any joints at all ; but after, very thick set and

small, and gradually increasing in length, as they descended towards the tail.

The heads of the other two worms exactly appeared the same in the microscope,

as this. And afterwards by carefully viewing them by my naked eye, I could

observe these hairs or spikes.

It was objected by some ingenious persons, who had been acquainted with
what I observed concerning this head, whether these spikes or hairs might not
be like the small feet of the tick or recinus, for its fastening itself the better to
help its suction. And indeed were it blood it lived on, the case were plain; but
since it is chyle, I do not see what service they could do it in this, for when
they fasten, the head is deep immerged in the inward coat of the intestine, and
so may be thought for that time to get but a very inconsiderable soop, if any,
and nothing in proportion to what is requisite for so vast a long body ; and
what it is often observed to be turgid with. On the whole, what seems most

* It is remarkable that Linnaeus, who does not appear to have examined the taenia with much ac-
curacy, denies the existence of the head. ' Caput serpentiforme ad extremitatem crassiorem fmxerunt
Tyson, Andry, Tulpius, sed fallunt, cum omnis articulus propria vita gandeat, nee ullus vennis capite
instruatur, quod canicidiis constat." Syst. Nat. p. 1323. — ^The real structure of the head is now well
known: it is surrounded by a double row of claspers or hooked processes, as truly described by
Tyson, and with four round orifices for suction, which Tyson does not appear to have discovered.
The species of tlie taenia are very numerous, and they chiefly inhabit the intestines of quadrupeds^
birds, or fishes.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. dQQ

agreeable to me, and to be the true use of this part we call the head, is this:
that by means of these hooks and spikes it might fasten itself, and so prevent
its too easy ejection out of the body. For it being so very long and large too,
and its body in many places winding, and convoluted, the descent of the faeces
upon all occasions would be apt to carry it out with them, had it not this hold,
which is so fast, that rather than loosen itself, parts of the body are sooner
broken off, which we frequently see in the stool. When it penetrates the coat
of the intestine, it contracts its hooks in, and draws up its head to a point,
then expands them, and takes firm hold of the membrane, by darting its several
poniards into it, which excites those intolerable pains which those that are
troubled with them so much complain of; that I have known it to that extre-
mity, that some have been scarcely dissuaded from offering violence to them-
selves, to free themselves, as they thought, from a great misery ; and hence it
is, that this worm is of so difficult a cure, that though by medicines and purges
vast quantities at times may be brought away, yet some can hardly get a perfect
cure all their life time, as I know of one who for above 20 years has been af-
flicted with it.

I have already observed the orifices in every joint to be of 2 sorts ; that in
several worms, both from human bodies, as also in those of brute animals,
they are placed much about the middle of the joints on the edges, most fre-
quently alternately, in one joint on the right hand, in the other on the left,
sometimes in two, seldom in more on the same side; they are protuberant,
something like a papilla, (fig. 7) and in the middle a foramen easily enough to
be perceived by the naked eye, and will readily admit a hog's bristle. In the
other sort, these protuberances are placed about the middle of the flat of the
worm, towards the upper part of the joint. At present I shall chiefly insist
upon the former sort, which has occurred most commonly to me, and a short
black line here, placed transverse to the body, I think was the first that gave
me notice of them ; though since in others I have not so constantly seen it,
but only a protuberant orifice about the middle of the edges of the joints.
That they are so many mouths, I shall argue, first, from the. great quantity of
chyle they are often turgid with. Secondly, from the great appetite, but more
often thirst, but almost always that emaciation which they occasion. Thirdly,
that there is no other mouth besides observed. Fourthly, that no uses can so
fitly be assigned to these orifices as their being mouths.

As to the first, all that have observed them, cannot but confess that they are
often very turgid ; as that I have by me 8 yards long, at first did very plainly
appear; and having put it into spirit of wine, I found after a little while it had
muddied it, by spewing out a large quantity of a chylous juice, which made a

600 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. FaNNO 1683.

L"

deep sediment at the bottom, as likewise it did a second time, having changed
the old and put it in fresh spirits. Whence all this should issue I cannot see,
but by these orifices at the sides, which first I supposed had received and licked
it in. And being in so large a quantity, how otherwise could it be well received
into the body, but by these many mouths? which being always open, and lying
of all sides too, do greedily exhaust and devour the best part of the chyle, and
nutritious aliment. That hence may be well accounted for, that appetitus ca-
ninus, that great thirst, that atrophy, that are often observed in those that are
afflicted with this worm. Indeed Spigelius thinks this bulimy and atrophy are
occasioned not so much by the worms devouring the chyle, as 1 . Corrupting it.
2. Hindering its distribution by occluding the meseraick veins. 3. By its creat-
ing a false sense by the motion in the guts. All which reasons do nothing move
me. And Galen is express that it is by devouring the nourishment, and so is
Aetius, and 20 more that I could name. But had they but one mouth, how
could they do this? But having as many, it may be as the lacteals themselves,
it is no wonder that they rob them, and by their speedy drawing it up, prevent
its passing into them. That thence we must necessarily expect an extenuation
of our own bodies, in proportion to the increase of theirs, since the nourish-
ment we receive is but what they leave us, and that too none of the best, and
corrupted likewise with their excrements. 3. I argue that these orifices are so
many mouths; for if we do not admit them to be such, I know not where in
the whole body to find them besides. For in that part we call the head, even
our microscopes cannot discover any ; and those too, who guessed it to be there
all acknowledged it to be very small ; and it being so, and but single too, I can-
not see how it can take in so great a quantity of chyle, which would be neces-
sary for maintaining so great a body of so vast a length; for as it can only lick
up what just comes in its way, the open mouths of the numerous lacteals,
would be too hard for it, and quickly starve it. Besides, since it nousels its head
so deep in the coats of the intestines, at that time at least it may be thought in-
capable of getting scarcely any thing at all. Therefore 4. why I think those
orifices mouths is, because I ca^mot think what they are besides. For to take
them for so many vents of their excrement, would be more unreasonable, since
it is pure chyle which they receive, which will not afibrd much, at least so gross
an excrement as to need so many and large orifices for the voiding it. And why
so many anuses when but one mouth ? it is easier to imagine them bronchia or
lungs, which in insects are observed in all the annuli, or joints of the body;
but with very great difi'erence from our subject. For in them you shall con-
stantly see these orifices of both sides in each annulus ; but in our worm never
but on one side; in those they are not near so open and large as in this worm^

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 601

even so much that I cannot see how it can be avoided, but that the chyle must
slip into them, and so spoil them for being lungs.

Upon the whole, what I have here offered I think is sufficient to render my
conjecture probable. And yet I have more reason to add why these orifices
should be mouths, because the joints when broken off yet still do live, and that
too as may be thought for some considerable time, which they could not unless
they had mouths in each, which might receive the aliment for the support of
it. Which brings me to the last particular I proposed for discriminating this
worm from all others out of the body. But since it has been so stiffly main-
tained by authors of great note, both modem as well as ancient, that the
worm itself scarcely lives, but is only a spolium of the intestine, or at least
that it is not one but many worms included in that membrane; I shall consider
how unlikely all such opinions are, and wide of the truth, and then deliver my
own observations concerning it.

Hippocrates, or whoever was the author of that book, amongst his works,
tells us that this worm is oxoiov Ttp Ivri^a ^va-fAot, Xjuxov, quasi album ramentum in-
testinorum. And Aetius, and Paul us ^gineta are express that it is only the
inward coat of the intestine turned, and changed into the figure of an animal,
and many more are of the same opinion not worth mentioning, it seeming so
absurd, as Mercurialis observes. He rather thinks it to be the mucus, which
lines the inside of the intestines, and defends them from any asperities of the
feeces. And abundance there are of this opinion. But Franciscus Valleriola
seems the most of any to play the philosopher, and labours to show how this
pituita of the guts may be formed into a membrane, and then endeavours to
explain how these incisures or jointings of the body might happen likewise.
Felix Platerus is very positive that they are no animals at all. But those many
physicians who have observed them to move, and therefore to be animals and
alive easily confute him; and Gabucinus mentions one voided by a child 2
years and 4 months old ; that being put into water lived almost a day. And a
remarkable instance I had which I met with on the dissection of a dog in the
theatre of our college, where several of the members were present. I shall
therefore mention what I particularly observed of it, and how it moved itself,
which was very pleasing, and in different forms. For though all was per-
formed by contracting and shortening the joints, yet sometimes it rendered the
body that was flat round, and a cylinder; other times it made a deep hollow
or concave on one side, and a convex on the other: but most times there was
a bellying out at the edges, about the middle of the joints; and though that
part towards the head was very slender, yet upon contraction it would become as
broad as the last joints. This contraction of the joints I sometimes observed
at several places at the same time, at some distance from each other, which

VOL. n. 4H

(J02 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

must needs greatly promote its progressive motion, since, being of so great a
length, it could make but small advance, which is perhaps requisite, that it
might recover itself, when the descent of the faeces drive it downwards.
And for the advancing too of its motion, at every joint there is a prominence
of the former over the latter, which like so many scales on the belly of other
reptiles do perform the use of feet.

But I find that those who admit this worm to be alive, have several of them
very different thoughts of it; and many assert that it is not one, but many
worms linked together. Gabucinus denies the lumbricus latus, i. e. that spolium
of the intestines, as he calls it, to be an animal ; but that it receives all its sense
and motion, from those cucurbitini included in it. This he very plainly, as
he tells us, discovered in a part of this worm, showed him by a person that
voided it. In that I met with in a dog in the college theatre, whilst alive, and
in my hand, a joint or two fell off, but I could no ways observe any membrane
hanging to the foregoing joint, out of which it might slip, but it broke off
entire. And although there were 2 single joints, which I found in the intes-
tine, on the first opening it, yet there was nothing I could see affixed to the
last, which might include them. And indeed the setting on of the joints here
is such, that seems to me sufficiently to show, that this worm cannot be a con-
tinued membrane, articulated only by the several cucurbitini included in it,
since there is so large a protuberance of the lower extremity of the foregoing
joint, over the upper part of the following, which I plainly perceived in this
worm. If only a membrane, why constantly and thus regularly a difference of
both extremes, as to their length and breadth? How happen the hooks at the
head? How are those orifices formed at the edges, or on the flat of the
worm? And if it was so, as Gabucinus imagined, I cannot think but I must
have perceived something of it in those several pieces of this worm, which I
have observed, and especially in that 8 yards long, where I opened several
joints, and could find no such thing. That mucous matter therefore, which is
observed to be voided by those troubled with them, which he tells us the women
there take for the beds of this worm, may be better accounted for; it being
likely in a great measure to be but the mucus of the intestines themselves, or a
slimy spolium cast off from these worms. Thus leeches I have observed being
put into water cast out a slime, which covers their bodies, which afterwards
they slip off and is found in the bottom of the glass in the form of a mucous
coat. So earth-worms void a large quantity of a mucous liquor at several
parts of their body; so snails, &c. of which more in my anatomy of those ani-
mals. Upon the whole, I see no reason why we may not justly ascribe that life
we find here to the lumbricus latus itself, and not to any animals we may fancy
it pregnant with. And what I give to the whole, I must attribute likewise
to the several parts of it, even when separated from the rest of the body; and

TOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ()03

cannot but think that they live also. But they are only the joints or pieces
broken off from the latus, and when they are voided in the stools, are a sure
sign of a jointed worm. And the cure must accordingly be adapted. But that
all these single joints whilst in the body do live, besides those considerations I
have already delivered to prove that in every joint there is a mouth for receiv-
ing the food, (and no doubt answerable organs for the digestion and distribu-
tion of it) I am the farther induced to believe, because it has been often ob-
served by myself and others, that both single joints and oftener larger pieces
have been voided alive, and where vast quantities of this worm too have been
voided at the same time; in abundance of pieces, I have observed them almost
equally turgid, and alike filled with chyle, in proportion to the magnitude of
the parts. Now I cannot think that in voiding, it can always be broken into so
many pieces; and if it be done sometime before, and they lie dead in the body,
they must be macerated, and different from what they appear. But that ob-
servation, I have already often mentioned of that worm I met with in the dog
I dissected in the college theatre, furnishes me with something apposite to our
purpose. For here about the middle of the worm, as it lay in the intestine,
about a foot and a half from the tail, or lower extremity, I observed 2 single
joints, about 4 of an inch long, that were alive, and which continued their mo-
tion briskly for ^ of an hour, or more in warm water. That these were broken
off from the tail, I have no doubt, being in all respects so like them. And
that it must be done some time before, I am apt to think, because they were
so remote from it; for they could not otherwise easily, being but single joints,
make so great an advance, being on all occasions liable rather to be driven down,
not being able, as I could observe, any ways to fasten themselves, and so resist
the force of the descending faeces. Which is the reason when broken off, that
they are so frequently voided.

Upon the whole, I have been sometimes apt to think what analogy there
may be between this jointed worm and knotted plants, of which each joint
can so easily propagate itself. And whether it may not be thought a plarit-
animal, or zoophyton, bred in animal bodies, since so large and frequent de-
truncations of the body do not destroy the life of the whole. Which I think
can scarcely be instanced in any animal besides.*

The Explanation of the Figures.

PI. ig^ fig. 1, represents that worm, or rather part of a worm, voided by
a young man in London, 8 yards long, which I still keep by me. The less
extreme is that part towards the head, the broader, the tail. The protuberances
about the middle of the edges of the joints, are the orifices I take for mouths.

* The hydra and other of the polypus-tribe were at this time unknown,

4 H 2

604 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

Fig. 2, represents the worm I took out of a dog on dissecting it in the col-
lege theatre, which was about 5 feet long, and was alive. The small end shows
the head, as it appeared then to the naked eye, and is represented magnified by
the microscope in the 8th and gth figures. The protuberances at the sides are
the mouths. The broad end the tail, as in the first figure.

Fig. 3, 4, 5, represent the figure of the head of this worm, which are given
us by Nich. Tulpius and Jo. Mich. Fehr.

Fig. 3, represents the 2 heads, which Tulpius in the former edition of his
Observations gave to this worm, where he makes it a biceps.

Fig. 4, is the picture of the head of this worm, which Tulpius gives in the
latter edition of his book of Observations.

Fig. 5, shows the head of this worm, as it is delineated by Jo, Mich. Fehr,
which appears like a tricoccos.

Fig. 6, is the figure of this worm in Cornel. Gemma.

The following figures represent parts of this worm, as viewed by the microscope.

Fig. 7j represents the protuberance or papilla about the middle of the edges,
and in it the orifice, which I take for the mouth of this worm.

Fig. 8, is the head of this worm as it appeared in the microscope, in 3 se-
veral ones I took out of the body on dissection, wherein is observable a double
order of spikes or hooks; the longer arising from the centre, the other more
towards the edges, which at pleasure it can draw in or protrude, and with them
part of the neck also, as appears by the swelling out a little below, as it is very
curiously delineated, as well as the other figures, by my most ingenious friend
and accomplished gentleman. Rich. Waller, Esq.

Fig. 9, is a side view of the head and the hooks in it, of the same worm.

Total Eclipse of the Moon, Feb. -i-f, l682, observed at Paris and at Copenhagen.

N° 146, p. 145.

At Paris. Copenhagen.

The Phases by Cassini. Picard&DelaHire, Fa.deFonteney. Roemer.

h. m. s. h. m. s. h. m. s. h. m. s.

The beginning 9 20 55 9 21 58 9 21 25 8 40 10

The centre immersed ...... 9 51 10 9 8 40

The same by comparing the

beginning and end 9 50 24 9 50 44 9 50 10 98 50

Moon entirely immersed 10 19 53 10 19 30 10 18 55 9 38 10

* Beginning of emersion 11 57 51 11 56 O 11 58 0 11 13 40

Centre emerges 12 25 50 1 1 44 40

The same by comparing the

emersion of the two limbs . . 12 26 9 12 25 15 12 26 8 11 43 10

End of the eclipse 12 54 27 12 54 30 12 54 17 12 12 40

VOL. XIII.] 1»HIL0S0PHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 60f

The same Eclipse observed at Dantzic hy M. Hevelius. N° 146, p. 146.

Phases. Corrected time.

Beginning of penumbra, very faint 8*^ 40"* 46*

Beginning of the eclipse 10 25 5

Total emersion of the moon 11 27 30

Beginning of the emersion 13 O 8

The central emersion 13 28 40

End of the eclipse 13 59 17

End of the penumbra 14 15 O

Lumbricus Teres,* or some Anatomical Observations on the Round IVorm bred in
human Bodies. By Edward Tyson, M.D. &c. N° 147, P- 154.

I shall here give the anatomy of the lumbricus teres, that common round
worm which children usually are troubled with: and in this more particularly
make my remarks on the organs of generation in both sexes; and herein show
how vastly different they are from those parts in the common earth worms, and
perhaps most others. I had designed to have given also the anatomy of the
earth worm ; but have since altered my intentions: and at present shall refer to
the account given of it by the famous Dr. Willis, reserving my farther obser-
vations of it to another opportunity. This sort of worm by Hippocrates is named
o-T^oyyuXat; by Celsus, teretes; and is usually about a foot long, more or less; but
I have hitherto observed that the male is generally less than the female: so that
by their magnitude in the same body I have before dissection been able to dis-
tinguish the sex. They are about the size of a wheat straw, or a goose quill ;
their colour white; but being subjects so generally known to all, I shall forbear
a further description of their outward parts ; only as I remember I did not ob-
serve those feet, or asperities on the annul i, as in the earth worm. At both
extremes they grow narrow. Their mouth is composed of three lips as in
the figure. So the leech has three cartilaginous teeth set in a triangle, by
which they make the wound in the skin in suction. The anus is a transverse
slit a little before the extreme point of the tail.

In opening the body I found I cut through a large muscle under the skin :
which muscle in earth worms I find is spiral; as in a good measure is their mo-
tion likewise ; so that by this means, like the worm of an auger, they can the
better bore their passage into the earth. Their reptile motion also may be ex-
plained by a wire wound on a cylinder; which when slipped off, and one end
extended and held fast, will bring the other nearer it. So the earth-worm,

* Ascaris lumbricoides. Linn.

606 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1683.

having shot out, or extended its body, which is with a wreathing, it takes hold
by its small feet, and so contracts the hinder part of its body.

I observed also that dividing this part, there issued out a copious ichor; which
is naturally discharged by some pores or small vents in the skin ; which in the
earth-worm is of great use, by rendering the surface of the body slippery, that
so it might the easier glide into the earth. And in these other worms of the
intestines this humor, as in leeches, makes a covering to the body, which is often
cast off, and observed as a mucus, in the stools of those troubled with them.

In these teretes of animal bodies I never observed those transverse diaphragms
which are so numerous in earth-worms, and do intersect or rather so deeply de-
press the intestine. But the cavity chiefly seems to be filled with the genital
parts, which I shall now describe: only first remarking, that the passage from
the mouth was somewhat straightened for a short space, and was distinguished
as in the figure, from the following ductus; which was a straight intestine, con-
tinued to the end of the body, without any winding or other distinction of a
stomach that I could observe.

As to the genital parts of the male, I could here observe a penis, a vesicula
seminalis, and a testis : in the female a pudendum, vagina uteri, cornua uteri,
and spermatic vessels. The penis in the male was placed at the tail, or opposite
extreme to the head ; and seemed to be able to exert itself almost the length of
a barley corn, or proportionably to the length of the vagina in the female. At
the root of the penis was inserted the neck of the vesicula seminalis, which
gradually grew larger as it ascended in the body, and usually reached almost
half way. It was filled and turgid with a milky juice; which it received from
a slender vessel of the same colour inserted into it. Which after one turning,
was afterwards very much convoluted ; and so forms that body I call the testis.
Although this part be so loosely contexed, as even to the naked eye it appears
but as a continued vessel, and may easily be unravelled its whole length, which
I measured above a yard: yet I make no difficulty of giving it the name of a
testis; since it is now sufficiently known, that the testes in more compleat
animals are only a congeries of vessels. And a rat, besides this worm, is not
the only subject wherein I have found them thus loose and easily separable.

In the female worm, almost about the middle of the body, but more towards
the head, I observed an orifice or pudendum, which led into the vagina uteri;
which soon divided into the two cornua which were large, and remarkable.
For descending something winding towards the tail, they were then reflected
again, and did each of them terminate in slender vessels, white, as they were,
but much smaller; and lay in several convolutions and windings among them.
These I take for spermatic vessels. Having taken those vessels, with the cornua

Vol. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 607

uteri and vagina, out of the body, and laid them on a paper to dry ; I found
from each cornu, to the end of the spermatic vessels which I had preserved,
that they measured about four feet. I opened the cornua uteri, and found them
turgid with a milky juice ; having placed a little of it on a small microscope, I
plainly perceived it was nothing else but an infinite number of small eggs ;
though, to the naked eye, it appeared only as a fluid body. These eggs when
fresh, appeared, as is represented in fig. 13, pi. I9, covered with abundance of
small asperities; but as they grew dry their surface appeared smooth. By com-
paring that small quantity I did observe, in which I could distinguish so many
eggs, with the whole substance contained in both the cornua, I guess there
must be more than 1000 eggs in each female worm.

How far different this worm is from common earth-worms as to these parts,
I need only to refer to Dr. Willis's figures and account of it, to show. And I
am yet to learn what worm out of the body has these organs thus formed.
When once there, tlie case is plain how they propagate themselves. And Men-
jotius, and all before him, that were of that opinion, are mistaken, who say that
these worms do not generate; nor have any distinction of sexes. Hippocrates
is express, «i jw.fi/ a-r^oyyvXon r/xTao-*. And I think nothing can be plainer than
this distinction of sexes in them.

But I find on the other hand, there are many who do not only allow them to
generate, but make them viviparous too. Thus P. Borellus tells us, Vermem
crassum ab hominis corpore eductum, forteque pedibus exenteratum, non sine
admiratione vidi vermiculis innumeris refertum esse. So Amatus Lusitanus tells
much such a story ; that a girl voiding a large worm, and the father treading
on it, ex eo alii prodierunt vermes. And Felix Platerus gives an observation
of a boy that was hydropical, and voided all his excrements upwards ; who dying
in the hospital, and they observing a motion and palpitation in his belly, were
afraid to bury him till they had sent for the doctor. He opening him found
the intestines in some places swelled as large as his thigh ; in others so con-
voluted, intorted, and twisted, that hindered any passage downwards, either of
excrements or wind ; Sed et vermibus vivis quamplurimis repleta erant, qui rursum
aliis minoribus referti. You may see an instance likewise de vermibus foetis in
Salmuth Cent. 3. Obs. 24. But Dominicus Panarolus is very express; and tells
us, he observed it thus in two several persons; In utroque expuisi fuerunt
vermes colore carneo, longitudine circa sexdecim digitos, qui praegnantes
erant, et ligno collisi cum fuissent, apparuerunt vermes parvi, subfiles, albi,
longitudine sex digitorum, prope innumeri, qui tanquam serpentes parvi move-
bantur. But whatever is related of this nature, I cannot but think it is a mis-
take; and that they were imposed on by the genital parts of this worm ; which

008 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

not warily examined, might easily make them think they are so many small
worms. For they are not viviparous but oviparous, as I have shown ; and their
containing so vast a number of eggs in the cornua uteri, as I have expressed,
sufficiently accounts for that prodigious quantity, that are sometimes observed
to be bred in animal bodies.

Panarolus tells us, he once saw the stomach and guts stuffed with them
so that they ascended up to the throat. Baricellus, by the use of crude mer-
cury, brought away from a patient above a hundred. Jo. Jadoc. Weckerus did
the like, with the use of tansy seed and syrup of violets. Gabucinus saw
voided by stool 177* Benivenius saw voided by a child 7 years old 152 worms.
And Jacob Hollerius, out of Musa, gives us a history of a man of 82 years old,
who voided above 500. And Petrus Paulus Pereda saw a nobleman's child in a
few days void almost a thousand, and she voided 40 in 4 hours time.

Those animals are usually the most multiparous, whose young are the most
exposed to danger; and were it not that the greatest part of the litter of this
worm is usually carried forth by the faeces, it could not be avoided but we
should be devoured by an enemy we breed in our own bowels. That caution
therefore of Henr. ab Heers I think is necessary ; to avoid the giving the powder
of these worms for expelling others; since we cannot be secure, but that at the
same time we may sow the seed for propagating more.

The Explanation of the Figures.

Plate 19, fig. 10, represents the male worm opened. Where, a shows
the three lips of the worm; b the oesophagus, or gullet; ccc the large intes-
tine; d the penis; ee the vesioula seminalis; f the testis.

Fig. 11', represents the female worm opened. Where, a shows the mouth;
b the gullet; ccc the intestine, or gut; dddd the vagina uteri; e the two
cornua uteri ; fff the spermatic vessels; g the anus.

Fig. 12, represents the genital parts of the female explicated. Where, a
shows the pudendum or foramen, as it appears on the outside of the skin;
b the vagina uteri ; cc the two cornua uteri; dd the spermatic vessels.

Fig. 13, represents the eggs of this worm, as they appeared when viewed by
the microscope.

A remarkable Relation of a Man bitten by a mad Dog, and dying of the Hydro-
phobia, In a Letter from Martin Lister, Esq. dated York, March 2d, l683.
N" 147, p. 162.

James Gorton, a very strong and well made young man, was bit by a mad
dog in the right hand. The wound healed of itself, and the thing was for-
gotten even by himself and his wife. After about five or six weeks he com-
plained of pain all over his bones, but especially in his back and round about his

VOL. XIII.} PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 60p

Stomach ; and he looked very pale., hollow eyed, &c. The third day after this
complaint, (Sunday, March 11,1 682,) he called for burnt brandy, drank it,
and went to bed, but vomited it up. After this he had a restless night, and in
the morning found himself very ill, with a strong rising in his stomach ; and
though no thirst, yet an inability to drink, and even to swallow his spittle,
which was death to him as he often said. Diascordium and a bottle of cordial
water was brought to him ; he took the former, but was not able to drink one
spoonful of the cordial. About 1 o'clock that day, (Monday) I first saw him;
his pulse was very slow, and sometimes unequal; his flesh cold, his tongue not
dry, but flexible and moist, a little white. As he complained greatly of sick-
ness about his stomach, I offered him of the cordial, but he started, and trembled
at the approach of it. A tumbler of water was brought, which I gave him to
drink ; but he vehemently started at it, and his stomach swelled and rose, after
a strange manner ; and I could then find his pulse very trembling and disturbed.
I still urged him to drink; but as I put it forwards to his mouth, he the more
affrighted drew back his head, and sighed, and eyed it with a most ghastly look,
not without shrieking and noise. This happening on several times repeating,
it became plain the disease was the hydrophobia.

I forthwith ordered a vein to be opened in the arm which was bitten, caused
the wound to be scarified and drawn with vesicatories, and the same plaister to
be applied to the neck and legs, and the inside of the arms; I ordered the usual
antidotes to be given him, as oftheriaca, cinis cancrorum, ruta, agaricus, &c.
in boluses ; for he could take solid things in a spoon, but yet not without much
trembling, fear, and caution, and an earnest request that nobody would sud-
denly offer them to him, but give them into his hand gently; and then he
would by degrees steal his hand softly towards his mouth, and of a sudden chop
the spoon in and swallow what was in it, like a dog. Of these antidotes in
bolus he took a drachm every hour, and always in this manner, for at least a
dozen times taking; but when drink was offered him, he could not see it
without horror_, and the same motions from his stomach. And he affirmed
that as oft as he by chance swallowed any spittle, it went to his heart, as if he
should die that very moment. This night passed wholly without any sleep
or rest.

Tuesday morning I viewed his blood, which was both as to the serum and
cake well coloured, and in such proportion as is usual in healthful persons, and
of good consistence. He had now a violent fever on him, and a very quick
pulse. Water was again offered him, but in vain ; he begging he might die
unmolested, nothing being such a terror to him as the approach of any drink ;
and that none might come suddenly upon him, or offer him any thing more,

VOL. II. 4 I

6]0 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

for all things frighted him. I then with much difficulty persuaded him to cast
himself across the bed upon his belly, hanging his head over the other side;
persuading myself that this posture might be advantageous to his drinking, since
that in the erect posture, of a man he could not so much as endure the approach
of liquor. In this posture then of a dog, he suffered a large bowl filled with
small-beer to be brought under his head, and embracing it with raptures of joy,
he declared he was infinitely refreshed with the smell of it ; that he now saw it
with delight, and assured us he should be able soon to drink, it all off\ And
though he had just before thought himself dying, he now talked pleasantly, and
said many passionate things to his brother, wife, &c. wonderfully extolling this
invention, and thanking me for it. He endeavoured with great earnestness to
put down his head to it, but could not ; his stomach rose as often as he opened
his lips ; at length he put out his tongue and made towards it as though he
would lap; but as often as his tongue touched the surface of the beer, he started
back aflfrighed. And yet seemed pleased with the thoughts of drinking; and
would not suff'er it to be taken away from under his head ; and if it was but a
little withdrawn, he said he followed it by the smell with delight, snuffing with
his nostrils. After a long time trying in vain, he alleged that the faint smell of
the small-beer hindered him from drinking, and therefore desired a bowl of ale;
which was brought him ; but after much striving, and exerting his tongue a
thousand times, he could not drink of it ; and lapping with great affiights, as
oft as his tongue touched it he started back with his head, bringing it down
again gently to the bowl a hundred times, but all in vain. And in this posture,
what upon his belly and what upon his hands and knees, he kept himself at least
an hour thus tantalizing himself; but still it was not in his power to drink. We
then gave him a quill which consisted of two or three joints, the one end in his
mouth and the other in the liquor ; but he could not manage it, nor suck any
more than a dog. I persuaded him to cease trying, and lie down ; which he
did; and not long after my going away he fell into a convulsion fit, bit and
snarled, and catched at every body, and foamed at the mouth. After this fit
was over he took an elleborism in a bolus, which was taken like the rest, and
very willingly by him ; it wrought about 3 or 4 times very plentifully, and he
declared himself wonderfully at ease by it ; but yet now and then became con-
vulsed, and then was always insensible.

After 4 hours I returned to him again. He was again solicited to drink, and
he now readily enough put himself into the former posture, and with as much
earnestness as ever used all the little shifts to drink, while the bowl was under
his head; but all in vain. He had a little silver tumbler filled with drink put
into his hand; which suddenly, when he had as it were stolen it near his mouth.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l 1

he would have thrown it into his throat, as he did the boluses; but it hit against
his teeth and fell into the bowl. As he never went to stool or made water all
this time, a clyster was given him ; but on parting with it, which he did im-
mediately almost as soon as given, he died convulsed: but his not making water,
as well as a troublesome priapism, which he complained of when on his knees,
might proceed from the blistering plaisters, as well as from his disease.

The day after his interment I accidentally met his cousin Mrs. S. who told
me that her daughter was in fear, for just that very day fortnight before his
death she had been at his house, and he would go home with her to her mo-
ther's; that she remembered his hand trembled and his body shook, that he
was in a cold sweat, and in a great disorder, so that she asked him what he
ailed : he told her that after his work (for he was an upholsterer) it had been of
late usual with him: and what was remarkable the very dog which bit him came
at that time along with him to her mother's house ; and was alive and well at
the time of the man's death.

To this we add, that Mr. Widdow, a mercer, affirms, that about the very
time that Mr. Corton was thought to have been bitten by Sutton's dog, a black
dog, which he verily believes to be the same, came and bit a whelp of his in his
shop. The next day the whelp ran mad up and down the house, and bit both
him and the maid ; him in the hand, and the maid in the leg, and died that
very day. About a month after he was bitten he found himself unwell, and was
troubled with a pain at his heart, and had a fearfulness and trembling upon him,
and got no rest for 3 nights, upon which he had himself blooded, and found
himself better ; his maid does not yet complain of any harm.

[The author's speculations on this case are here omitted, as tending to throw
little light on the subject. It may, however, be proper to remark, that Dr.
Lister believed the patient's spittle to be infected with the canine poison ; an
opinion now generally received. Future opportunities will occur in the course
of this work, of offering some observations on the nature and treatment of this
mnost dreadful of all disorders.] -?

A Continuation of a Discourse on Vision^ with an Examination of some late

Objections against it. By JVilliam Briggs, M. D. and Fellow oftfw College of

Physicians. N*' 147, p. 1 7 1 . ■•

Having formerly given a specimen* of my thoughts on vision, I have been

prevailed with to make this enlargement of the forementioned discourse, to the

fuller explaining my thoughts, and the clearing some difficulties which have

* In Mr. Hook's Philosophical Collections, N° 6, p. 540, of this vol. j

4l2

6l2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

been propounded against It. In that small essay I endeavoured to show, 1. That
the fibres of the optic nerve, as rising from the two protuberances of the thalami
optici, were more concerned in vision then either the cornea, humours, or re-
tina ; not only because sensation is performed chiefly in the brain, and these
other parts are but the transennae to it; but also because in an amaurosis, or
gutta Serena, these parts are free from any indisposition, the eye appearing as
naturally without any fault, though the sight is then wholly lost. 2. I show
there that the superior fibre in each thalamus opticus had the greatest tension,
and the inferior the least; as may appear from the former arising from the top
of the thalami optici and having the greatest flexure thus o ; and the latter
arising from the lower part of the aforesaid thalami, and having the least flexure
thus ^. 3. It may be further noted, that the intermediate or lateral fibres in
the same eye, though diametrically opposite to each other, are said to differ in
tension, by reason of a more considerable flexure of the external then the inter-
nal. 4. 1 observed that the optic nerves arose separately from those two moleculae
of the brain, and besides have a peculiar advantage in rising from these hillocks
in this manner; whereas the other nerves arise from the basis of the brain in a
flatter manner, and closer together, so that the extreme difference of their rise
is very remarkable, and intended surely by nature for some extraordinary end.
5. In the position of the fibres of the optic nerves, I show that they keep their
distinct order, and consequently that they are not mixed or blended together
at the place of their connection, as was frivolously supposed by authors before
to solve the union of vision. 6. I observed that in the insertion of these fibres
into the eye, where the medullary part of them forms the retina, they still kept
their distinct series, and that they are much kept in, not only by being fastened
or terminating on the processus ciliares, but also by little transverse fibres,
which serve to connect those that run longwise, and make the whole coat ap-
pear in a glass of clear water like lawn or tiffany, as I have shown. None that
I know ever did it before me, and those that have mentioned the same experi-
ment since, have mistook my intent in it. For the putting the retina in water
is not to wash off the mucous substance, which is its proper substance; but to
expand the fibres by the playing it up and down in warm water, and to magnify
the image of it by a double refraction of the lucid rays, which pass through that
and the glass that contains it. 7. But next of all I would have it observed, that
whereas I say the intermediate fibres gradually diff'er in tension as they are nearer
or further from the top of the thalami optici, it may be easily supposed that they
do it by so minute gradations, that the difference of those that are higher to
the top from the superior of all is very little, but from those that are further
off great enough, and the difference of the highest fibres from the lowest.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l3

greatest of all. 8. Whereas I mention sometimes the parallelism of the cor-
respondent fibres, I mean it not in a strict mathematical sense, but only their
being as it were in aequilibrio or due poise in respect of their situation ; and
therefore if those fibres had been straight, and not of a curved figure as they
are, I should have rather chose to have expressed my mind by the phrase of
mathematicians, of their being in eodem piano. But my sense being under-
stood, there need not be any exception to the word, since it was not so easy to
express my meaning by a better; and therefore I shall pass by this, and proceed
to more real objections that have been sent me by Mr. Newton, our worthy
professor of mathematics at Cambridge, and other friends, relating to the opi-
nion itself.

The 1st objection was made in the Royal Society when it was read there
which it seems was this; viz. That it seemed difficult to conceive how those
soft medullary fibres of the nerve could have such a tension. But this is not
harder to conceive than in that of a spider's web, whose mucous substance and
expansion very well answer to that of the retina; and as the least breath of
wind moves the one, so the least gale of the ethereal or lucid matter causes a
vibration in the other. Further it was objected, that it was hard to conceive
how so soft a body as the thalamus opticus could make such a difference in the
stress or tension of the fibres. But it is apparent, that on drawing the nerve
from it forward, the superior fibres are more on the stress than the lateral, and
nature in these cases is finer in her operations then we are in our conceptions of
them. It seems so especially in the formation of this organ.

2. It has been objected by others, that if the superior fibres were more tense
than the inferior, we should see better by rays falling on the top than the bot-
tom of the eye, or see an object better placed below our eye, when the rays
passing in a straight line from it must terminate in the top fibres, than above it,
when they must terminate in the lower fibres. To this I answer, that it does
accordingly fall out so, and this is a more positive and direct proof of my opi-
nion ; for I appeal to any man's experience whether the characters in a book ap-
pear not better to him, or he reads not better in it, held about half a yard un-
der his eye than so much above it; or whether he does not more readily discern
or find out objects beneath than above him with the same light : and this may
be further illustrated by my Lord Bacon's experiment, of a man's appearing
better on the ground to him that is placed on a high steeple, than vice vers^.

3. It is urged that according to my scheme of the situation of the correspond-
ent fibres, the rays of an object placed laterally, suppose toward the left eye,
could not fall on the fellow fibres in the right eye ; for if it were placed slant-
ingly toward the left eye, the rays could not fall on the internal lateral fibres of

6l4 Philosophical transactions. [anno i683.

both eyes in that position, but on the internal of one, suppose the left eye, and
the external lateral of the right ; which would cause a double perception. This
objection I foresaw when I hinted that whether the nerves decussated or not, it
would be no prejudice to my opinion, nay perhaps might more fully confirm
my opinion where they do. In that passage I had respect also to the inversion
of the image in the eye being rectified in the brain ; though that equally presses
any other hypothesis, and the explication of the thing may be well enough
understood by a blind man's judging of the position of an object above his head
by touching it with one end of his stick, though the other end terminates under
that object or in his hand : and so in our view of an object, the true situation
of the respective parts is not distinguished so much by means of that end of
the ray that terminates in the eye, as of the other end that touches the object,
from whence the vibration or protrusion comes.

But to leave this, which does not so particularly concern me, I come to the
objection itself, as it relates to my opinion ; and though it seems at first view
the most difficult of all to be answered, yet it may be determined by the experi-
ment itself, better than by the scheme (in the Philos. Collections), where the
eyes are not drawn in that position that is here required. Now let there be
placed an object near the left eye of any person, but not so near that eye as that
the nose might hinder the rays from falling on the right, because it is to be
seen with both, and whilst that person looks on it let a by-stander obwserve the
position of both eyes, and he shall see that the pupil of the right eye is turned
in a very oblique manner to the object, whereas the pupil of the left is scarcely
so at all, whereby there will be three parts to one more in the distance of the
pupil of the right eye from the external canthus, than there will be in the other.
Hereby it appears that if the object be so placed that it is seen with both eyes,
the right eye accommodates itself to the position of the left, that the rays strike
correspondent fibres, and the percussion or vibration being toward the bottom
or papilla of the eye, a small turning of one eye to another will make that ac-
commodation.

Moreover as this accommodation is made in an oblique position of the object,
so is it more readily done in a direct position of the same; and this we may per-
ceive in an object's retiring in a straight line from the eyes, whereby the pupils
gradually divaricate; as on the contrary they converge when the object is seen
very near them, and that so forcibly that it is painful to hold them long in that
posture.

4. But to proceed to Other objections: the case of cross-eyed persons by birth
I have considered at the end of the forementioned essay, and shown why a

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l5

morbid strabismus, or more violent contortion of those muscles after great con-
vulsions of the nerves^ causes always a double vision.

5. It has been urged that the tension of all the fibres of the optic nerves
might be uniform, notwithstanding the greater flexure of the superior; because
these latter might be longer, and consequently might not have a greater stress
upon the thalami optici then the lateral : as, if the arm of a tree grows bent, the
fibres on the protuberant part seem not more stretched than on the concave side,
but to take only a longer compass. To which I answer that sense evinces the
contrary in our case, and if any one draws out the optic nerve straight forward
from the thalamus opticus, he will plainly see that the top fibres press more on
the subjacent medullary protuberances than the lateral, or make a deeper im-
pression.

6. It has been urged that the action of vision was uniform, and therefore re-
quired an uniform tension of all the fibres. To which I answer, that though in
the view of the entire object, or its place by both eyes, it ought to be so, and
that therefore it was done by correspondent fibres ; yet in a stricter view of the
parts of the same object by one eye, there is a discrimination.

7. Lastly it has been urged that the fibres of the choroides seem more
adapted to vision than those of the retina, because these last did not sistere
species, as transmitting the colours of the former; and besides some blood
vessels running among them would interrupt the image; and lastly sensation
could be better continued to the tense fibres of the pia mater by the one, than
to the brain by the softer of the other.

^n Account of the Dissection of a Bitch, ivhose Cornua Uteri being filled with
the Bones and Flesh of a former Conception, had after a id Conception the Ova
affixed to several Parts of the Abdomen. By a Physician, F. R. S, N° 147,
p. 183.

It would seem a needless thing to publish an observation, to confirm the
opinion of the production of animals from eggs, which is almost universally re-
ceived: but that some time since the learned Diemerbroeck, and very lately
Mons. Verney have endeavoured to confute and expose it. The most con-
siderable argument they use is taken from the narrowness of the Fallopian tubes,
where they open into the womb, and at their extremities. But, though these
authors lay a great stress on the structure of that passage, it cannot be accounted
of any force, when ocular demonstration is brought against it ; and the eggs are
discovered in the entrance, and afterward to have made their way through them
into the womb.

6l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

The sagacious Dr. Harvey was very near the discovery of the egg, and its
use : he came within sight of it, but overlooked it. After many repeated
dissections of impregnated deer, he asserts, that nothing for about 6 or 7 weeks
can be seen in the cornua of their wombs : that there then appeared somewhat
like an egg, a transparent liquor included in a very thin membrane, in which
after a week he could plainly see the rudiments of a foetus. He gives his opinion
very expressly in his treatise de Partu ; " vipera ovum unicolor et molli cortice
(qualis muliebris conceptus est) intra se continet, &c." The viper has eggs,
whose parts are of one colour, enclosed in a soft shell ; and the very same is a
woman's conception. But he could not inform himself, how the eggs in wo-
men or in deer come into the womb. He declares himself fully satisfied after
several trials, that no liquor can be so forcibly injected into the womb,soas to make
its passage into the place of conception. Nor did he suspect, that the seed of the
female lay till the egg appeared, in any crannies or recesses of the cornua uteri,
which he asserts are then as smooth and soft as the corpus callosum of the brain.
Dr: Harvey having thus sufficiently confuted the opinion, which till his time
prevailed, of the production of animals from the mixture of the seminal matter
of both sexes, it was not so difficult to discover whence the egg came, which he
saw about 7 weeks after impregnation. The Fallopian tubes which join to the
cornua and terminate very near the ovaria, as the testes muliebres are generally
now called, directed the ingenious and industrious de GraafFto make more accu-
rate dissections of them. He presently saw that the limpid liquor which Dr.
Harvey thought was designed to humect the parts adjacent, was contained in an
entire membrane, and exactly answered the description he gives of the eggs he
saw in the womb.

As he first discovered the use of those globules in the ovaria, so in that ex-
cellent piece de Mulieris Organis, he demonstrates the alteration of those
which are impregnated, the way of excluding them by the glandulous substance
swelling behind them, and the aperture through which they pass, remaining
open all the time of gestation, &c. But more particularly he has very nicely
observed the progress of the eggs in conies, the very time of their passing into
the tubes, and appearing in the cornua of the womb, which comes very near that
portion of time Dr. Harvey observed the eggs in his deer; so that nothing can
be objected of force enough to shake an opinion confirmed by such numerous
exact observations. He has prevented the objection which Diemerbroeck and
Mr. Verney use against him, that the tube is too narrow at each end to trans-
mit globules of that size: alleging that the hole by which it has its exit out
of the ovarium is as narrow ; that no force is used to open it, but it expands
itself, as the os uteri before the birth : as nuts and peach-stones, &c. give way

VOL. XIII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6l7

to the germinating plant, which is less able to make its way than the egg. But
besides though the extremity of the tube be membranous in most quadrupeds,
in which it is possible a seminal liquor might be transmitted to the womb ; in
women it is divided like a knot of ribbon, and is no more adapted to receive any
thing but an egg, than the fingers expanded to receive and contain a fluid. The
egg has not been able sometimes to get into the womb; Riolan speaks of a hu-
man foetus seen in one of the tubes;* and Dr. Harvey assures you he has seen it
himself. In the dissection of a bitch at Oxford, the embryoes either could not
get into it, the membranous expansion being hindered from ascending to and
clasping the ovaria, by the fulness of the womb; or from the same cause were
forced back again. She had been with whelp: by a blow she received the foetus
died within her. She discharged by the pudendum a great quantity of putrid
flesh and matter. She was afterward able to run in the pack. After the second
impregnation she was observed to have a very ill shaped belly. When dead the
owner sent her to Oxford. The cornua of the womb were so stuffed up with
the bones and firmer muscles and thicker skin of the foetus, (some of them lay
in the usual posture, the skeletons of which were entire, the interstices of the
bones only filled up with skin and flesh), that no seminal matter, or aura semi-
nalis could possibly find a passage to the ovarium. The eggs affected in the
second impregnation, finding no room in the cornua, were forced back into the
abdomen: where they were found affixed to the mesentery, kidney, &c. Only
two of the bags had a communication with the womb by a slender duct. These
I suppose fell into the cornua first, and began to fasten to them, but growing
larger were forced to retire. The other three had had no reception there at all.
The membranes which contained the embryoes were all of them very thin, and
the animalcules in them had wanted a due supply of nutritious matter. This
seems to give as clear a proof of the truth of the modem opinion, as can be ex-
pected or desired. — [In the concluding part of this communication, the author
subjoins some pointed reflections on the absurdity of the doctrine of equivocal
generation.]

The Anatomy of a monstrous Pig. Communicated by an ingenious Student in

Physic. N° 147, p. 188.

i

About the beginning of December l682, among many pigs of a sow, there
was one which had no passage for the faeces, either solid or liquid, although the
anus was not outwardly closed up ; which, whether natural, or caused by the
neighbours who had attempted a cure before I saw it, I cannot positively assert.
There was likewise no visible sign of either sex. Being dissected, it aflforded
• An instance of this is recorded in the first volume of this Abridgement, p. 358.

VOL. II. 4 K

(J18 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. £aNNO 1683.

these following observations. 1st. The guts were very much distended and
transparent, and through them appeared the faeces very liquid, accompanied
with no small quantity of wind; the end of the rectum was entirely closed like a
bladder, and sealed as it were hermetically, pendulous in the cavity, and not in
the least continued to a sphincter, of which there was no sign. 2dly, There
was no bladder to be found, nor uterus, nor any mark of what sex it was de-
signed for. 3dly, To supply the place of a bladder, both the ureters were in-
serted into the rectum within an inch or thereabouts of the end. 4thly, The
stomach was full, even to distension, of a hard substance, which being opened
was exactly the same to appearance with hard pressed curds. 5thly, The chyle
came freely enough out of the ductus Pecquetianus, where it was inserted into
the jugular, on the smallest pressure of the intestines. 6thly, I could not urge
the liquid or flatulent contents of the guts upwards within 1 inches of the
pylorus, though I pressed them till they broke, which hindered the inquiry
after a valve, that possibly might be there, to hinder the regress of any thing
to the stomach.

Fleta Minor, or the Laws of Art and Nature in knowing, judging, assaying,
fining, refining, and enlarging the Body of confined Metals, &c. By Sir John
Pettus, Knight, &c. N° 147, p- ISQ.

This useful treatise contains in general the whole art of proving and melting
all sorts of ores and metals, and is divided by the author into five books; of
which the first treats of silver ores, assay furnaces, cupels, assay- weights, touch-
needles, &c. ; the 2d of gold ores, parting, cementation, &c. ; the 3d of copper
ores, the manufacture of brass, &c. ; the 4th of lead ores, and briefly of tin,
antimony, quicksilver, iron, steel, and the loadstone. The 5th and last book
treats of mineral salts; viz. saltpetre, vitriol and alum. A dictionary of the
terms employed in metallurgy is subjoined to the whole.

Benjamini d, Brookhuysen CEconomia Animalis, &c. in Ato, l683. N° 147, p. 194.

An attempt to explain the intellectual and corporeal functions, on the princi-
ples of the Cartesian philosophy.

An Abstract of a Letter from Mr. Anthony Leuivenhoeck, of Delft, to Mr. R. H.
concerning the appearances of several Woods, and their Vessels. N° 148,
p. 197.

I send you here some observations on wood. Fig. 1, pi. 20, BCD Is a part
of the circumference of an oak or ash tree, &c. being of 1 8 years growth, and

VOL. XIII.} PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6ig

therefore having 18 rings, one for each year; that which is made the last year
being always the greatest, though not always proportionably great, but accord-
ing as the year is more or less fruitful. The pieces described* in the following
figures are such as E-J- in the 15th ring, and sometimes not so large ; yet from
such a part I doubt not but the constitution of the whole tree may sufficiently
be understood.

When a tree is sawed across, and afterwards planed very smooth, we see
lines J as it were drawn from the centre A, and reaching to the circumference
B; these are vessels which carry the sap to the bark ; as by the adjoined figures
will appear.

In fig. 2, ABCD shows a piece of oak, which observed in a microscope was
thus drawn from a piece of wood as large as H. FF where the brown strokes
appear, are the separations of the growth of one year. For when the growth
stops, the wood becomes firm and thick; and is supplied with many small
vessels, such as are hardly to be distinguished, and therefore appear as brown
rays or streaks. Between the said FF, FF, is comprehended that thickness of
wood which has been added to the circumference of a tree by a year's growth.
The wood has five sorts of vessels, || viz. Three sorts going upwards, and two
lying horizontally. EEE denote large ascending vessels made every year in the
wood in the spring, when it begins to grow. These are filled within with small
bladders, which have very thin skins, here expressed in one of the greatest
vessels, cut longwise in the third figure by IKLM. The second sort of rising
vessels are much smaller, which also are made of very thin skins, and are also
specked with parts which by a common microscope appear like globules, as ON,
fig. 4, where one of the said vessels is cut longwise. The third sort of rising
vessels are very small, and in great number, being made also of very thin skins,
as PQ, fig. 4, where they are drawn longwise.

All these ascending vessels in the aforesaid piece of wood, which is about -^
of a square inch, are I guess about 20,000 vessels. Hence in an oak tree of 4
feet diameter are 3,200 millions of ascending vessels, and in one of 1 foot, there
are 200 millions of vessels. If we suppose 10 of these great and small vessels in

* The same noted in Dr. Grew's Anatomy of Tranks, p, 24. — Orig.

f Note the figures as they are here engraved are not so large as those designed by the author, being
sometimes but -^ (or other part) of their length ; and so must be supposed not to reach from ring to
ring as E. — Orig.

X The same which Dr. Grew calls the insertions. Anatomy of Plants, chap. 2. And diametral
rays. Anatomy of Tr. p. 20, 50, &c. — Orig.

n See a figure of the same wood with all the same five parts, in Dr. Grew's Anat. of Plants.
And the partitions of the great horizontal parts, hereafter mentioned, see in his Anat. of Roots
tab. 7. — Orig.

4 k:2

^20 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1683.

a day to carry up 1 drop of water, and that 100 of these drops make one cubic
inch, there will be 200,000 cubic inches. These inches reduced to feet, amount
to full 115 cubic feet of Rhinland measure, of 12 inches to the foot; and one
cubic foot weighing 65 lb. of our Delpht water, the whole will amount to 7475
lb. or 14 Bordeaux hogsheads of water, which a tree of one foot diameter in
one day can bring up. Whereby it appears, that how small soever the quantity
of water is which a pipe or vessel may be supposed to carry up, yet if all the
vessels were employed to that use, how much the total would amount to. But
I conceive that several of these vessels convey of the same moisture downwards
again to the root, and so cause a circulation : as I have formerly said.

These forementioned uprising vessels empty constantly their sap into an in-
credible number of vessels, which lie horizontally in the body of the tree, to
cause a continual growth in thickness. Fig. 2, GGG are a sort of vessels
which run horizontal, beginning from the pith of the tree, but afterwards in
great numbers taking their rise from the ascending vessels. These vessels ap-
peared like dark streaks running crooked, and winding for the most part along
the sides of the great vessels. To observe these vessels better, I caused the
wood to be cut in length in such manner that I came to divide the said vessel's
across very neatly. These vessels lie not above 5, 6, or 7, one above another,
as they are here drawn between the ascending vessels PQON, fig. 4.

The second sort of horizontal vessels which lie in great numbers together,
but in some places much more than others, are described fig. 2, AB or CD :
but when we cut the wood in pieces longwise, and thereby cut across these
vessels, then they appear to our naked eye as RS, fig. 5. I have also drawn
the same in many places at their length, with crooked partitions, which I
judged to be valves* though I have not been able to see them always so clearly
as they are here expressed, but after I had found them sometimes, I concluded
them to be generally so, both because 1 have seen them in elm wood, as also
that I concluded without these valves it were impossible the tree should increase
in thickness, because of the force that is necessary not only to separate the
bark in the spring from the wood,-}- and keep it loose; but also to cleave and
open the bark all the time the tree is growing ; and thereby make room for its
increase in thickness. Now if there were none of these valves, then the sap
which was impelled by the heat of the sun against the bark, with the setting of

• * Sig. Malpighi and Dr. Grew both make these partitions to be the terminations of the bladders
of which these radiated parts consist, and not valves. See the forementioned Anatomy of Tr. fig. 21,
p. 21, 22, and Anat of Roots, tab. 7. — Orig.

+ Dr. Grew thinks that the bark is never separated from the wood. See Anat. of Tr. p. 52, ice.
—Orig.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS'. 621

the sun, when I conceive the sap ceases to rise,* would fall back again, and cause
a labour in vain. In this small piece of wood TV, fig. 4, (described by a mag-
nifying glass which augments more than that by which the ascending vessels are
drawn, that so the vessels might appear more distinct) there are more than
2000 vessels, each of which, if it be allowed but -\- of a grain of force in the
protruding its moisture, the force which all these horizontal vessels together
must use towards the separation of the bark from the wood, will appear by this
calculation. Suppose then that fig. 4 is ^y-S-g- of a square inch, and that in the
whole piece are but 2000 vessels, which make in a square inch 1,400,000 ves-
sels, that is 350,000 grains; this number divided by 10,240, the grains in a
pound, makes full 34 pound, for the force which the vessels in so small a piece
of wood come to exercise upon the bark.

In fig. 6, ABCD, is represented a piece of elm-wood, which to the naked
eye is the size of fig. E, and is what this tree increased in one year in thickness.
AD and BC show the ceasing of the growth in the year's end. The small
rising vessels, which lie together between the great vessels, are in this wood
smaller than in oak, and each pipe consists of a thicker film than the pipes of
the oak. AB and CD show the horizontal vessels at full length.

Fig. 7, FFFF show the horizontal vessels cut across; of which, those that
lie but few together, I conceive to be vessels lately proceeding out of the rising
vessels : whereas on the contrary, the other vessels which lie many together,
have subsisted many years, and are as many in number as they ever will be.
GGGG show the small rising vessels at length.

HH show one of the great rising vessels in length, cut cross in the middle;
yet when we observe the same more exactly, we see that they consist of very
thin films, beset with helical threads, exhibiting obscure spots on the bends,
fig. 3.

Among these trees there are several which upon tapping yield a sap. This
sap I have several times, and several years observed, and taken notice in it of
divers small animals, which I could not imagine should have come out of the
wood, but rather that they might have come from rain water or dew.

Fig. 8, ABCD is a piece of beech, as large as fig. F to the naked eye, the
thickness of one year's growth ; wherein one may plainly see at AD or BC the
beginning and end of the year's growth. In this wood there are represented
two sorts of rising vessels, viz. greater and smaller; and I imagine that there are
also two sorts of horizontal vessels, which are very small : one of which, viz.
EEE lies but 1, 2, 3, or more together, as fig. 9, which shows those vessels

* Yet vines and other plants bleed day and night.

022 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

cut through, and marked by HHH. The 2d sort which lie far asunder, as in
proportion D from G, and are marked out in their length by DC: these vessels
are likewise very small, and accordingly the rising vessels lie very close to each
other; they are likewise cut asunder across, as I, I, fig. g. Also, KKK are the
great rising vessels cut asunder longwise : which I generally observed to be be-
set with small parts, that through a common magnifying glass seemed to be
globules.

Fig. 10, ABCD represents a little piece of willow wood, as large to the
naked eye as fig. F. The same consists also of two sorts of rising vessels, small
and great ; the large ones beset with little parts, seeming globules. In the
same I saw bending lines which heretofore I imagined to have been valves, as is
represented fig. 11, in one of the same rising vessels marked by G. These
small rising vessels have exceedingly thin films, which it was impossible for me to
delineate with red chalk, so finely as was requisite. In this wood I saw but one
sort of horizontal vessels, marked by EEE. These vessels are but few in com-
parison of the horizontal vessels, which I hitherto have observed in other woods.
The same are not far extended in length, and for breadth they lie single.

Fig. 1 1, HHH is the same vessels cut across, represented between the rising
vessels, being at their length. In one of the great rising vessels GG, I like-
wise showed that they are beset with little parts seeming globules, but they are
exceedingly small.

Fig. 12, is a piece of alder-wood, the breadth of which is about the thickness
of a hog's bristle to the naked eye. It consists likewise of two sorts of rising
vessels ; the smaller of which consists of exceedingly thin films, and the larger
sort of films beset with little parts extremely small, to which you can give no
other names than globules. Between AB and CD is the increase of the tree in
a year's time. EEEE are the vessels which run horizontal.

Fig. 13, FF are the great rising vessels cut through longwise. HH are the
small rising vessels. GG the horizontal vessels cut across.

Fig. 14, ABCDEF is a little piece of black Mauritius ebony wood, exhibited
by a microscope magnifying more than any of the former; because these vessels
could not well be observed by the ordinary glasses; and this little piece of wood,
wherein are shown about 1100 rising vessels, is no larger than to be covered by
an ordinary grain of sand. I purposed at first to have drawn this wood more at
large, having intended to have shown its decrease in the latter end of the year,
and increase at the beginning of the year or spring : but in my attempting I
found that my labour would be frustrated, because that wood grows in a climate
where it increases always : for the island of Mauritius lies in a few degrees north
of the tropic of Capricorn. In this wood I am persuaded there are four sorts of

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 623

rising vessels. GGG are great rising vessels, whereof some appear to have
contained a fluid matter, which in drying seems to have closed them together
in several places, as II, fig. 15, where one of the vessels is plainly exhibited at
length.

Fig. 16 is likewise one of the greater vessels, magnified more by a yet greater
glass, which was much more perspicuous than the former, beset also with ex-
ceedingly small parts. The 2d sort of rising vessels, which are placed generally
between the horizontal vessels ABC and HH, are likewise in many places partly
filled with black matter. The 3d sort of rising vessels, which follow the cir-
cumference of the tree, are B and CDE. The 4th sort of rising vessels are
those which go checkerwise between the great rising vessels. These vessels are
of a firm wood, in proportion to the vessels of other wood; for the small round
which is placed in the white is only the openness of every rising vessel, and
the white wherein the round is placed is the wood that forms the vessel ; and
these vessels are so close and firm joined to each other, that they seem to be
but one, as if we should imagine that small holes were bored regularly in firm
wood.

Fig. 15, KKK are the horizontal vessels cut across through, of which I have
represented 2 in their length, fig. 14, ABC and HH.

Fig. 15, LL are small rising vessels in their length, cut from each other.

Fig. 17 is a piece of palm-wood, drawn by the same magnifying glass that
the Mauritius ebony wood was. Of this wood, though I examined a great deal
of it, I could find little diflTerence in the several parts, and therefore I have here
contented myself with describing a smaller portion. It consists of 2 sorts of
ascending vessels, viz. great vessels, and smaller ones lying among the larger.
The great vessels consist also of skins, being beset with small rising particles, as
in fig. 18, where the vessels are opened longwise, and represented by EEEE.

The small vessels have their cavities very like those of the small vessels in
Mauritius ebony wood, and are described cut longwise in fig. 18, FF.

AB or CD are the horizontal vessels, which in their length show themselves
thus, but being cut across they are as GG in fig. 18.

Fig. 19, ABCDEFisa description of a very small piece of straw cut across,
in which the part of the circumference AF may be discerned how great it is.

ABEF is the rind of the straw, which to outward appearance is smooth and
shining, though for the most part it is made of extremely small vessels, and of
some greater, which I have represented as near as possible. GGGG are the
vessels of which the innermost parts of the straw are made ; these vessels are 4,
5, and 6 sided, according as they come to fit themselves. HHH are other
vessels which run in between the forementioned ones, and are beset round with

624 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

small vessels. In these vessels I have seen the sap sink down suddenly at the
time of the growing of the straw, when at the same time I saw the sap rise up
in the vessels GG, which sap was made mostly of globules; and when the
globules came to pass the valves, where the vessels were narrowest, these glo-
bules then changed into the form of cones, till they obtained a larger room,
and then they retook their former globular shape.

Fig. 20 are the rising vessels described in their length, being the same with
those represented fig. 19, GG. I III are the places where these valves are, and
where the vessels are narrowest.

A Theory of the Pariation of the Magnetical Compass. By Mr. Edm. Halley,

F.R.S. N° 148, p. 208.

The variation of the compass, by which I mean the deflection of the mag-
netical needle from the true meridian, is of that great concernment in the art
of navigation, that the neglect of it renders almost useless one of the noblest
inventions mankind ever yet attained to. Now although the great utility that a
perfect knowledge of the theory of the magnetical direction would afford to
mankind in general, and especially to those concerned in sea affairs, seem a
sufficient incitement to all philosophical and mathematical heads, to take under
serious consideration the several phaenomena, and to endeavour to reconcile them
by some general rule: yet so it is, that almost all the authors, from whom a
discourse of this kind ought to have been expected, pass by in silence the diffi-
culties they here encounter. And those that mention this variation by affirming
it to proceed from causes altogether uncertain, as are the casual lying of iron
mines and load-stones in the earth, put a stop to all further contemplation, and
give discouragement to those that would otherwise undertake this inquiry. It
is true that not long since one Mr. Bond, an old teacher of navigation, put
forth a small treatise, wherein he pretends to calculate the variation : but he
limits his hypothesis to the city of London, affirming himself, that the same
calculus is not sufficient for other places, whereby it appears that his rule is far
short of the so much desired general one.

Now although I cannot pretend perfectly to establish the numbers and rules
of a calculus which shall precisely answer to the variations of all parts of the
world, yet I suppose it will not be unacceptable to the curious to propose some-
thing of a light into this abstruse mystery, which, if no other, may have this
good effect, to stir up the philosophical geniuses of the age to apply themselves
more attentively to this useful speculation. But before I proceed, it will be
necessary to lay down the grounds on which I raise my conclusions, and at once

YOL. XIH.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^25

to give a synopsis of those variations which I have reason to look upon as
sure, being mostly the observations of persons of good skill and integrity.

A Table of Variations.
Na^e. of Place,. ^^f^^,, I.ti.ude. ^n^o V^^^n

London • ' SI® 32'k 1580 11° 15'e

1622. ... 6 Ok

l534 4 5 E

1672 2 30w

1683 4 30 w

Paris 2 25 E 48 51 n 1640 3 Oe

1666....

1681 2 30 w

Uraniburg 13 Oe. ...55 54 n. . . . l672 2 35 w

Copenhagen 12 53 e 55 41 N l649 1 30 E

1672 3 35w

Dantzic 19 Oe 54 23 H 1679- ... 7 Ow

Montpelier 4 0 e 43 37 n l674 1 10 w

Brest 4 25 w 48 23 n l680 1 45 w

Rome 13 Oe 41 50 n l681 5 Ow

Bayonne 1 20 w 43 30 n l680 1 20 w

Hudson's Bay 79 40 w 51 On l668 19 15 w

In Hudson's Straits 57 0 w 6l On l668 29 30 w

In Baffin's Bay at Sir Thomas Smith's Sound 80 0 w 78 Ox l6l6 57 0 w

At Sea 50 Ow 38 40 n l682 7 30 w

At Sea 31 30 w 43 50 n l682 5 30 w

At Sea 42 Ow 21 On l678 0 40 e

Cape St. Augustine oflF Brasil 35 30 w 8 Os l670 5 30 «

Cape Frio 41 10 w 22 40 s l670 12 10 e

At sea, off the mouth of the river of Plate 53 0 w 39 30 s l670 20 30 e

At the east entrance of Magellan Straits 68 0 w 52 30 s I670. ... 17 0 e

, At the west entrance of Magellan Straits 75 0 w 53 0 s 1670 ... 14 10 e

Baldivia 73 0 w 40 0 s 1670 8 10 e

At Cape d'Agulbas 16 30 e 34 50 s l622 2 0 w

1675 8 0 w

At sea 1 0 E 34 30 s l675 0 0

At sea 20 Ow 34 Os l675. . . . 10 30 e

At sea 32 Ow 24 Os l675 10 30 e

At St. Helena 6 30 w. ... 16 0 s l677 0 40 e

At Ascension 14 30 w 7 50 s l678 1 Oe

At Johanna 44 0 e 12 15 s l675 19 30 w

At Mombasa 40 0 e 4 0 s l675 16 0 w

AtZocatra 56 Oe 12 30 N l674 17 Ow

At Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea 47 30 e 13 On l674 15 0 w

At Diego Roiz 61 0 e 20 0 s 1676 20 30 w

At sea 54 30 e 0 0 . . . . l676., . . 15 30 w

YOL. II. 4 L

626 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

Names of Places. Longitude. Latitude. An. Dom. V ariation

At sea 55° O'e. ...27° O' s. . . . l676. . .. 24° O'w

At Bombay 72 30 e ip On 1676 12 0 w

At Cape Comorin 76 0 e. . . . 8 15 n 168O, ... 8 48 w

AtBallasore 87 Oe 21 30 n 168O 8 20 w

At Fort St. George 80 0 e 13 15 n 16BO 8 10 w

At the west point of Java 104 0 e 6 40 s 1676. ... 3 10 w

At sea 58 0 e 39 0 s l677 27 30 W

At the Isle of St. Paul 72 Oe 38 Os l677 23 30 w

At Van Diemen's Land. 142 0 e 42 25 s l642. ... 0 0

At New Zealand 170 0 e 40 50 s l642 9 0 e

At Three King's Isle in New Zealand 169 30 e 34 35 s . . . l642 8 40 e

At the Isle Rotterdam in the South Sea 184 Oe. ...20 15 s l642 6 20 e

On the Coast of New Guinea 149 0 e 4 30 s l643 8 45 e

At the west point of New Guinea 126 0 e. . . . 0 26 s. . . . l643. ... 5 30 e

We must now make some remarks on the foregoing table, and first: that ia
all Europe the variation at this time is west, and more in the eastern parts than
the western, as likewise that it seems throughout to be upon the increase that
way. — Secondly, that on the coast of America, about Virginia, New England,
and Newfoundland, the variation is likewise Westerly; and that it increases all
the way as you go northerly along the coast, so as to be above 20° at Newfound-
land, nearly 30° in Hudson's Straits, and not less than 57° in Baffin's Bay; also
that as you sail eastward from this coast the variation diminishes. From these
two it is a legitimate corollary: that somewhere between Europe and the north
part of America, there ought to be an easterly variation, or at least no westerly ;
and so I conjecture it is about the easternmost of the Tercera islands.— ^3 . That
on the coast of Brasil there is east variation, which increases very notably as
you go to the southward, so as to be 1 2" at Cape Frio, and over against the
river of Plate 20^°, and from thence, sailing south-westerly to the Straits of
Magellan, it decreases to 17^ and at the west entrance but 14°. 4. That at the
eastward of Brasil properly so called, this easterly variation decreases, so as to
be very little at St. Helena and Ascension, and to be quite gone, and the com-
pass point true about 18° of longitude west from the Cape of Good Hope. — 5.
That to the eastward of the aforesaid places a westward variation begins, which
obtains in the whole Indian Sea, and arises to no less than 18*^ under the equa-
tor itself about the meridian of the northern part of Madagascar, and near the
same meridian, but in 39° south latitude it is found full 27i^ from thence
easterly the west variation decreases, so as to be but little more than 8° at Cape
Comorin, and than 3° on the coast of Java, and to be quite extinct about the
Molucca islands, as also a little to the westward of Van Diemen's Land, found
out by the Dutch in l642. — 6. That to the eastward of the Moluccas and Van

yOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^2/

piemen's Land, in south latitude, there arises another easterly variation, which
seems not so great as the former, nor of so large extent ; for that at the island
Rotterdam it is sensibly less than on the east coast of New Guinea ; and, at the
rate it decreases, it may well be supposed that about 20° farther east, or 225°
east longitude from London, in the latitude of 20*^ south, a westerly variation
begins. — 7. That the variations observed by the honourable Sir John Nor-
borough at Baldivia, and at the west entrance of the Straits of Magellan,
plainly show, that that east variation noted in our third remark is decreasing
apace; and that it cannot reasonably extend many degrees into the South Sea
from the coast of Peru and Chili, leaving room for a small westerly variation
in that tract of the unknown world that lies in the midway between Chili and
New Zealand, and between Hounds Island and Peru. — 8. That in sailing north-
west from St. Helena by Ascension, as far as the equator, the variation con-
tinues very small east, and as it were constantly the same; so that in this part
of the world the course, wherein there is no variation, is evidently no meridian,
but rather north-west. — 9. That the entrance of Hudson's Straits and the mouth
of the river of Plate, being nearly under the same meridian, at the one place
the needle varies 29-^° to the west, at the other 20^° to the east. This plainly
demonstrates the impossibility of reconciling these variations by the theory of
Bond : which is by two magnetical poles and an axis, inclined to the axis of the
earth ; from whence it would follow, that under the same meridian the variation
should be in all places the same way.

These things being premised may serve as a sure foundation to raise the su-
perstructure of a theory upon. But first it would not be amiss to show hereby
the mistake of Gilbert and Descartes; the first whereof supposes, that the
earth itself being in all its parts magnetical, and the water not, wheresoever the
land is, thither also should the needle turn, as to the greater quantity of mag-
netical matter. Now this in many instances is not true, but most remarkable
on the coast of Brasil, where the needle is so far from being attracted by the
land, that it turns the quite contrary way, leaving the meridian to lie NbE,
which is just along the coast. As to the position of Descartes, that the iron
and loadstones hid in the bowels of the earth, and the bottom of the sea, may
be the causes that the needle varies; if we consider for how great a part of the
earth's surface, ex. gr. in the whole Indian sea, the needle declines the same
way, and that regularly ; it will follow, that the attracting substance that occa-
sions it must be very far distant. Now by experience we find the little force
that iron guns have on the compass in ships, and the experiments now before
the Royal Society do plainly show, how little a magnetism there is in most
crude iron ores, what quantity thereof must be then supposed to make so

4L 2

628 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

powerful a diversion at 1 or 3000 miles distance ? Yet I cannot deny that in
some places near the shore, or in shoal water, the needle may be irregularly di-
rected from the aforesaid causes, and that not a little, as Gassendus gives a
notable instance of the island Elba in the Mediterranean sea; but these differ-
ences from the general direction are always signs of the nearness of those mag-
netical substances, for the production whereof that island Elba has been famous
from all antiquity. Besides, against both Descartes and Gilbert, the change of
the variation, which has been within this 1 00 years last past more than 1 5° at
London, is an entire demonstration ; though Descartes does not stick to say,
that the transportation of iron from place to place, and the growth of new iron
within the earth, where there was none before, may be the cause thereof. The
same holds likewise against the hypothesis of magnetical fibres^ which Kircher
maintains.

Now to propose something that may answer the several appearances, and in-
troduce nothing strange in philosophy, after a great many close thoughts I can
come to no other conclusion than that, the whole globe of the earth is one
great magnet, having 4 magnetical poles or points of attraction, near each pole
of the equator 2; and that, in those parts of the world which lie near adjacent
to any one of those magnetical poles, the needle is governed thereby, the
nearest pole being always predominant over the more remote. The parts of
the earth wherein these magnetical poles lie cannot as yet be exactly deter-
mined, for want of sufficient data to proceed geometrically ; but, as near as
conjecture can reach, I reckon that the pole which is at present nearest to us
lies in or near the meridian of the land's end of England, and not above 7° from
the north pole. By this pole the variations in all Europe and Tartary, and the
North Sea are principally governed ; though with regard to the other northern
pole, whose situation is in a meridian passing about the middle of California,
and about 15° from the north pole of the world; to this the needle has chiefly
respect in all the North America, and in the two oceans on either side thereof,
from the Azores westwards to Japan, and farther. The 2 southern poles are
rather farther distant from the south pole of the world. The one, about l6°
from it, is in a meridian about 20° to the westward of Magellan's Straits, or
95° west from London ; this commands the needle in all the South America, in
the Pacific Sea, and the greatest part of the Ethiopic Ocean. The fourth and
last pole seems to have the greatest power and largest dominions of all, as it is
the most remote from the pole of the world, being little less than 20° distant
from it, in the meridian which passes through Hollandia Nova and the island
Celebes, about 120° east from London; this pole is predominant in the
south part of Africa, in Arabia, and the Red Sea, in Persia, India and its

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 629

islands, and all over the Indian Sea from the Cape of Good Hope eastwards, to
the middle of the great South Sea that divides Asia from America. This seems
to be the present disposition of the magnetical virtue throughout the whole
globe of the earth. It remains to show how this hypothesis makes out all the
variations that have been observed of late, and how it answers to our several
remarks drawn from the table. And first it is plain that (our European north
pole being in the meridian of the land's end of England) all places more easterly
than that will have it on the west side of their meridian, and consequently the
needle, respecting it with its northern point, will have a westerly variation,
which will still be greater as we go to the eastward, till we come to some meri-
dian of Russia, where it will be greatest, and from thence decrease again*
Thus at Brest the variation is but 14°, at London 44-°, but at Dantzic 7° west.
To the westward of the meridian of the land's end, the needle ought to have
an easterly variation, were it not that (by approaching the American northern
pole, which lies on the west side of the meridian, and seems to be of greater
force than this other) the needle is drawn thereby westward, so as to counter-
balance the direction given by the European pole, and to make a small west va-
riation in the meridian of the land's end itself. Yet I suppose that about the
meridian of the isle Tercera, our nearest pole may so far prevail as to give the
needle a little turn to the east, though but for a very small space; the counter-
balance of those two poles permitting no considerable variation in all the eastern
parts of the Atlantic Ocean, nor upon the west coasts of England and Ireland,
France, Spain, and Barbary. But to the westward of the Azores, the power
of the American pole overcoming that of the European, the needle has chiefly
respect thereto, and turns still more and more towards it as we approach it.
Whence it comes to pass, that on the coast of Virginia, New England, New-
foundland, and in Hudson's Straits, the variation is westward : that it decreases
as we go from thence towards Europe, and that it is less in Virginia and New
England than in Newfoundland and Hudson's Straits. This westerly variation
again decreases as we pass over the North America, and about the meridian of
the middle of California the needle again points due north; and from thence
westward to Yedzo and Japan I make no doubt but the variation is easterly, and
half sea over not less than 15°, if there be any truth in this hypothesis of mine.
Therefore I propose this as a trial, that the whole may be scanned thereby^ and
I conceive it will not be hard to know of the Spaniards how it is, who so fre-
quently sail through that ocean, in their return from the Manilla isles. This
east variation extends over Japan, Yedzo, East Tartary, and part of China,
till it meet with the westerly, which is governed by the European north pole,
and which I said was greatest somewhere in Russia.

630 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I683.

Towards the southern pole the effect is much the same, only that here the
south point of the needle is attracted. Hence it will follow, that the variation
on the coast of Brasil, at the river of Plate, and so on to the Straits of Ma-
gellan should be easterly, as in our third remark ; if* we suppose a magnetical
pole situated about 20° more westerly than the Straits of Magellan. And this
easterly variation extends eastward over the greatest part of the Ethiopic Sea,
till it be counterpoised by the virtue of the other southern pole, as it is about
midway between the Cape of Good Hope and the isles of Tristan d'Acuntia.
From thence eastward, the Asian south pole, as I must take the liberty to call
it, becoming prevalent, and the south point of the needle being attracted by it,
there arises a west variation very great in quantity and extent, because of the
great distance of this magnetical pole of the world. Hence it is, that in all the
Indian Sea, as far as HoUandia Nova and farther, there is constantly west va-
riation, at that under the equator itself it arises to no less than 18°, where it is
most. About the meridian of the island Celebes, being likewise that of this
pole, this westerly variation ceases, and an easterly begins, which reaches, ac-
cording to my hypothesis, to the middle of the South Sea, between Zelandia
Nova and Chili, leaving room for a small west variation governed by the Ame-
rican south pole, which I showed to be in the Pacific Sea, in the 6th and 7 th
remark.

What I have now said, plainly shows the sufficiency of this hypothesis, for
solving the variations that are at this time observed in the temperate and frigid
zones, where the direction of the needle chiefly depends on the counterpoise of
the forces of two magnetical poles of the same nature ; and I suppose I have
shown how it comes to pass, that under the same meridian the variation should
be in one place 2g^ west, and in another 204- east, as I noted in my gth re-
mark.

In the torrid zone, and particularly under the equinoxial, respect must be
had to all the four poles, and their positions well considered, otherwise it will
not be easy to determine what the variations shall be, the nearest pole being
always the strongest; yet not so as not to be counterbalanced sometimes by the
united forces of two more remote, a notable instance whereof is in our 8th re-
mark, where I took notice, that in sailing from St. Helena by the isle of Ascen-
sion to the equator, on a NW course, the variation is very little easterly, and
in that whole track unalterable. For which I give this reason, that the South
American pole, which is considerably the nearest in the aforesaid places, re-
quiring a great easterly variation, is counterpoised by the contrary attraction of
the North American and the Asian south pole, each whereof singly is in these
parts weaker than the American south pole, and upon the NW course, the

Vol. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 631

distance from this latter is very little varied; and as we recede from the Asian-
South-pole, the balance is still preserved by the access towards the North-
American-pole.

Thus I hope I have not lost my pains and study in this difficult subject:
believing that I have put it past doubt, that there are in the earth four such
magnetical points, or poles, which occasion the great variety and seeming irre-
gularity which is observed in the variations of the compass. But to calculate
exactly what it is, in any place assigned, is what I dare not yet pretend to ;
though I could wish it were my happiness to be able to oblige the world with
so useful a piece of knowledge. There are difficulties that occur which render
the thing as yet not feasible ; for first, a great many observations are requisite,
which ought to be made at the same time; not at sea, but ashore; with greater
care and attention than the generality of sailors apply. And besides, it remains
undetermined in what proportion the attractive power decreases, as we remove
from the pole of a magnet; without which it were a vain attempt to endeavour
to calculate. There is yet a further difficulty, which is the change of the va-
riation, one of the discoveries of this last century ; which shows, that it will
require some hundreds of years to establish a complete doctrine of the magnetical
system. From the foregoing table it should seem, that all the magnetical
poles had a motion westward: but if it be so, it is evident that it is not a rota-
tion about the axis of the earth; for then the variations would continue the
same, in the same parallel of latitude, the longitude only changed, as much as
is the motion of the magnetical poles. But the contrary is found by experience;
for there is no where in the latitude of 5 1-f north, between England and America,
a variation of 1 1° east at this time, as it was once here at London. It seems
therefore that our European pole is got nearer the north pole, than it was here-
tofore ; or else that it has lost part of its virtue. But whether these magnetical
poles move altogether with one motion, or with several; whether equally or
unequally; whether circular or libratory; if circular, about what centre; if li-
bratory, after what manner ; are secrets as yet utterly unknown to mankind ;
and are reserved for the industry of future ages.

An Account of a Booh, viz. JVilhelmi ten Rhyne,* M. D. &c. Transisalano-
Daventriensis \ \. Dissertatio de Arthriiide. 2. Mantissa Sckematica. 3. De
Acupujictura. 4. Orationes tres ; sc. de Chymice et Botaniae Antiquitate et
Dignitate. De Physio gnomia. De Monstris. Lond.8vo.l663. N° 148, p. 222;

This author asserts that flatus or wind, included between the periosteum and

• William ten Rhyne, a celebrated naturalist of the I7th century, was physician to the Dutch
settlement at Batavia, in the island of Java. Besides the abovementioned dissertation, he wrote other

632 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

the bone, is the genuine producer of those intolerable pains afflicting gouty
persons ; and that all the method of cure ought to tend toward the dispelling
of the said flatus.*

He further asserts that head-aches, palpitations of the heart, tooth-ach, pleu-
risy, convulsions, numbness, epilepsy, colics, &c. arise from the same cause.

In treating of the cure of the gout, he recommends burning, though a severe,
yet as an adequate cure to so stubborn a disease; showing that fire, either po-
tential or actual, is the genuine dispeller of the wind, which he considers to be
the cause of this disorder.

That the eflicacious way of burning has been disused, he ascribes to the soft
education of these latter ages, whereby men are rendered averse to a method of
cyire too harsh and cruel ; to sense grown tender by luxury, ease, and pleasure :
and therefore he wishes a more gentle mode of cautery could be invented than
bare fire; yet commends that before some potential cauteries, whose activity
often produces unexpected symptoms, as not being so much at the command
of the applier. However, the frequent use of cauteries in Japan appeared suf-
ficiently to our author, from the numerous scars he saw all over the bodies of
many persons among that people, on no other account but burning with moxa ;
which he asserts, they use in all ages and sexes, and in all seasons of the year
with desired success.

All the surgery of the Japanese (he remarks) consists in the use of moxa;
and pricking with a long sharp needle. They had rather die than implore assist-
ance from christians.

But nature (he continues) is kind in affording great quantities of iomongi,
which our author calls broad-leaved mugwort,-j~ growing without culture every
where; known to the most ignorant Japanese; and being prepared is called
moxa. Our author passing by its other virtues, at present only shows its use
in the gout: which, after a digression concerning cauteries, whose efficacy is
asserted by Hippocrates, Celsus, and others there quoted, he describes in this
manner; the plant dried in the shade, freed from filth and the harder rougher
stalks, and rubbed between the hands till it become like cotton, is their moxa.

medical works, such as Meditationes in Hippocratis Textum, a treatise (in Dutch) on Asiatic diseases,
&c. He afforded great assistance to Van Rheede, in the composition of that superb botanical work
entitled Hortus Malabaricusj (of which an account has been given at pp. 590-591, of this vol. of
these abridgements;) and he transmitted many notices concerning East India plants to Jacob Breyne,
who inserted them in his splendid publications on rare exotics.

* This is a most absurd theory, derived in all probability from the native physicians of the Eastj
and adopted by them for the purpose of explaining the manner in which they suppose their favourite
remedies, burning with moxa and acupunctura, produce their effect.

+ A species of Artemisia.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 633

This cotton-like substance they form into a little cone, about the bulk of a pea;
or else in a paper roll it between their hands into a cylinder, to be divided into
little pellets for their purpose. The pulse of the place being felt, u{X)n it they
place the moxa, the basis of the cone next the skin, then taking care to keep
the body in a settled position, they light the apex of the pellet either with or-
dinary wood, or with an aromatic stick. The pellet does not wholly consume
into ashes, but leaves a little segment of its base on the part : a little blister is
hereby raised, of a cineritious colour, without much pain, giving vent to the
humours and wind. They burn sometimes even to 50 pellets on a place without
danger; and at last with success. To separate the eschar, garlic is applied for
24 hours. The rough side of a plantain leaf keeps the ulcer open ; the smooth
side heals it: cole- worts, betes, colts-foot, ivy, &c. are substituted for want
of plantain.

Many of the Japanese use moxa twice or oftener in a year to prevent sick-
ness, as solemnly as Europeans purge or bleed. In the most grievous chronic
diseases, and even in persons emaciated by consumptions, as an arcanum they
burn in four points near the os sacrum, two on each side, lying in a direct
line crossing the spine at right angles. Analogous to this practice, in a long
digression, the author quotes out of Hippocrates many instances and precepts for
burning in most chronic cases.

The whole art lies in designing the points to be burnt for each distemper;
which secret is in the hands of particular surgeons, who have formed rules to
direct them ; as also images in their houses marked in all those places that are
proper to be burnt. And to show the necessity of a due observing of proper
places, he asserts, on his own knowledge, that burning on the linea alba, a finger's
length below the navel, infallibly causes barrenness, especially in men; where-
fore that line is always avoided. Aside from it above the navel, burning, they
say, restores lost appetite, as also if moxa be applied to the shoulder blades.
For a gonorrhaea and weakness of the spermatic vessels, the parts about the
loins and the os sacrum are to be burnt ; for the colic, on the abdomen ; and
for the tooth-ach, on the chin at the commissure of the under jaw-bones. With
these and such like instances, and a receipt for hysterical lozenges, made of this
artemisia or mugwort, of constant use among the women of Japan, our author
concludes his discourse.

Mantissa Schematica. Here the author gives four drawings of those images
the Japanese physicians keep in their houses, marked in those places which they
burn with moxa and perforate with their needle ; annexing the inscriptions be-
longing to those images, which contain a brief account of their physic and
anatomy. They use inwardly three plants, much extolled for their virtues,

VOL. II. 4 M

634 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

above all others, 1 . rockqualiph, bearing fruit like kidney beans, and a root
yellow, bitter and odoriferous; 2. xinkiu, a tuberous root smelling like lovage,
remarkable among them for its enticing fish by the scent; and, 3. nixziu, whose
root they make the basis of all decoctions, in which form they exhibit all inward
medicines ; neither do they give many more than these named. Their internal
medicines are calefactive and discussers of wind ; and if those fail, they presently
have recourse to moxa or their needle.

De Acupunctura. The needle is made long, slender, sharp, of gold, or at
least silver, with a wreathed handle.

It is to be conveyed, either by the hand or a little mallet, into the part gently,
a finger's breadth or more, as the case requires, and to be held there for the space
of 30 breathings^ if the patient can bear it, otherwise repeated punctures are
rather used. The puncture must be when the party is fasting, deeper in a great
than less disease ; in old than young men ; in grown persons than in those that
are lean and tender ; in fleshy parts than in nervous. The needle is chiefly used
in diseases of the head and lower belly; and is applied to the head in head-
aches, lethargies, convulsions, epilepsy, diseases of the eyes, &c.; to the ab-
domen in colic, dysentery, want of appetite, hysterical disorders, surfeits,
pains of thebelly and joints, obstructions of the liver and spleen, &c. The womb
itself may be perforated, the Japanese affirm, and the foetus wounded, when its
motions are enormous and threaten abortion. In these cases the needle must
be applied to the part whence the distemper arises; to the stronger, on the back;
to the weaker, on the abdomen : where the pulse scarcely is perceived, there the
puncture must be made in the arms, a little beside the veins. The surgeons
keep by them images, wherein all the places in the body proper for the needle
are designed by marks. The author himself was an eye witness of the use of this
puncture on a soldier, who being afflicted with violent disorders of the stomach,
and frequent vomitings, at sea, suddenly relieved himself by pricking a thumbs-
breadth deep into four different places, about the region of his pylorus.

In his discourse of chemistry, he asserts its antiquity as far back as Tubal
Cain, whence he thinks the Vulcan of the heathens by some small change of
letters took his name ; that therefore Hermes Trismegistus was not the inventor
of it, but learnt it of Abraham in Egypt, &c. &c.

In his discourse of physiognomy, after making some remarks on the vanity
of astrology and chiromancy ; he observes, that the countenance is the epi-
tome of the whole man, representing (if dissembling intervene not) all the
inward passions and motions of the soul: and this upon the account, that the
temperament of the body, influencing the manners of the mind, also disposes
variously the lineaments, complexion, features, and air of the face. Then de-

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 635

scribing the differences of complexions, with physiognomical signs thence
arising; showing also what effects climate, custom, and dissimulation have, in
altering the face; giving a brief account of choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, and
melancholic 'dispositions ; recounting some signs of virtues and vices in men;
and lastly, reckoning up the humours and manners of several particular nations,
the author seems to have brought together all the most general rules, and to
have given the reader a scheme and prospect of the whole art of physiognomy.
The work concludes with a discourse on monsters.

Some Observations on the Ruins of a Roman Wall and Multangular-Tower at
York. By Mart. Lister, Esq. N° Up, p. 238.

In carefully viewing the antiquities of York, and particularly what might re-
late to the Roman empire, of which this place had been a seat, and the residence
of at least two of the emperors, Severus and Constantine, I found a part of a
wall yet standing, which is undoubtedly of that time; it is the south wall of the
Mint-yard, being formerly an hospital of St. Lawrence, looking towards the
river, and consists of a multangular-tower, which led to Bootham Bar, and some
yards of wall, which ran the length of Coning- street.

The outside towards the river, is the most worthy of notice. It is faced with
a very small square stone, of about 4 inches thick, and laid in level courses,
like our modern brick work ; but the length of the stones is not observed, be-
ing such as they fell out in hewing : from the foundation 20 courses of this
small squared stone are laid, and over them 5 courses of Roman brick ; these
bricks are laid some lengthwise, and some endwise in the wall, and were called
lateres Diatoni : after these 5 courses of brick, other 22 courses of small square
stone are laid as before, and then 5 more courses of the same Roman bricks are
overlaid, beyond which the wall is imperfect, and topped with modern building.
Note, that in all this height there is no casement or loop-hole, being one entire
and uniform wall, from which it seems the wall had been built some courses
higher after the same manner.

These bricks were to be as throughs, or as it were so many new foundations
to that which was to be superstructed ; and to bind the two sides together firm-
ly ; for the wall itself is only faced with small square stone, and the middle
filled with mortar and pebble. And lest it should seem strange, that bricks
should give a firmness to stone buildings, Vitruvius testifies, and therefore com-
mends brick building before stone, even for the duration; and therefore in
Rome, abatement was always made for the age of stone building; none for that
of brick, provided it kept its level, and stood upright upon its foundation; and
therefore to excuse it, he at large gives a reason why the Romans suffered not

4 M2

036 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

brick buildings to be made within the city of Rome, as a thing not of choice,
but necessity, these brick buildings being certainly, in that great architect's opi-
nion, to be preferred : the law, says he, suffers not a wall to be made to the
street-ward above a foot and a half thick, and partition walls th'e same, lest
they should take up too much room. Now brick walls of a foot and a half
thick, unless they were diplinthii or triplinthii, cannot bear up above one story;
but in so vast and majestic a city as old Rome, there ought to be innumerable
habitations ; therefore when a plain area or building of one story could not re-
ceive such a multitude to dwell in the city, the thing itself compelled them to
raise the houses higher, and therefore they had strange contrivances of out-
jetting, and over-hanging stories and balconies, &c. ; which reasons if rightly
considered are great mistakes ; for at this day it is demonstrated that a firm
building may be raised to many stories height upon a foot and a half thick wall.
The oversight of the Romans was the vast size of their brick ; for the smaller
the brick the firmer the work, there being much greater firmness in a multitude
of angles, as must be produced by a small brick, than in a right line; and this is
the reason of the strength of buttresses and multangular towers, &c.

Those bricks are about 17 inches of our measure in length, and about 11
inches broad, and 2 inches and a half thick ; agreeing very well with the notion
of the Roman foot, which the learned antiquary Greaves has left us; viz. of its
being about half an inch less than ours; they seem to have shrunk in the baking
more in the breadth than in the length; which is but reasonable, because of their
easier yielding that way ; and so for the same reason, more in thickness, if we
suppose them to have been designed in the mould for 3 Roman inches.

This demonstrates Pliny's measures to be right, and not those of Vitruvius,
as they are extant; which makes me much wonder at the confidence of Daniel
Barbarvis affirming the bricks now to be found, are all according to Vitruvius
and not Pliny's measures; for all that I have yet seen in England are of Pliny's
measures; as at Leister in the Roman ruin there, called the Jews Wall; at St.
Albans, as I remember, and here with us at York. And to go no farther for
arguments than this very chapter of Vitruvius, the diplinthii parietes in Rome
were against law, and the single brick wall was only allowed as standard, viz.
a foot and a half thick wall, or one Roman brick a length, as was above
noted.

Pliny lived sometime after Vitruvius, and being a professed transcriber, and
as it appears from this very place, having taken the whole business of brick
almost verbatim out of him, and not differing in any one thing in the whole
chapter, but in this, or the measure of the didoron ; and the bricks demon-
strating the truth of that difference, it is but reasonable we should make Vitru-

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 63/

vius's longum pede latum semipede, a foot long and half a foot broad, a fault
of Vitruvius's copiers.

I shall conclude this discourse with this remark, that proportion, and a plain
uniformity, even in the minutest parts of building, is to be observed, as this
miserable ruin of Roman workmanship shows. In our Gothic buildings there is
a total neglect of the measure and proportion of the courses, as if that was not
much material to the beauty of the whole, whereas indeed in nature's works it
is from the symmetry of the very grain that much of the beauty arises.

On the Colour and Distribution of the Chyle. By Martin Lister, Esq.

N° 149, p. 242.

These thoughts contribute nothing to the elucidation of the subjects of
digestion and chylification, and are therefore omitted.

On certain Conjunctions of the Planets Jupiter and Saturn. By J. F. [John
Flamsteed']y Astron. Reg. et R.S.S. N° 149, p. 244.

Whilst common observers have wondered to see the two superior planets Sa-
turn and Jupiter continue so near each other this whole year, and our astrologers
have affrighted them with fearful predictions of direful events to succeed this
appearance, the more judicious are desirous to know how often and at what
time their conjunctions happen, that by comparing their tables of these planets'
motions with the observed appearance, they may be the better able to correct
them, and render them more agreeable to the heavens. Examining our ancient
ephemerides, I do not find that three conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter have
ever happened in one year's space, since they were first in use, till this present.
Those of Moletius, calculated from the Alphonsine tables, indeed make three
in the space of 8 months, between August 1563, and April 1564 inclusive. But
the ephemerides of Stadius, calculated from the Prutenic, make only one, on the
26th of August, of which Junctinus gives us the following observation, in the
preface to his astronomical tables. Anno 1563, Aug. 24, 14h. 30 m. P. M.
Jupiter on the north-side as it were covered Saturn, which was on the south-
side, and both these planets were at the end of 28° of Cancer. Riccioli hence
concludes that the planet Jupiter covered some part of Saturn at this time. But
without reason, for the words quasi cooperiebat intimate not that the one did
corporally cover the other, but rather that there was some small interval between^
them. The Caroline tables make the visible latitude of Saturn now 1 T 43'''', of
Jupiter 20' 10', both north, the conjunction being some few days past : but be-

638 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

cause their latitudes alter slowly, we may hence conclude the difference 8' 25" to
have been nearly their distance at that time, these tables being grounded on the
Tychonic observations made within less than 40 years after ; and showing the
latitudes of the planets well at this time, near 100 years later, we may conclude
to have answered them as well then ; and, if we consider how small a space the
distance of 8^ minutes appear to the naked eye in the heavens, especially be-
tween two such bright planets as Saturn and Jupiter, that the Caroline distance
agrees very well with the words of Junctinus, and that Riccioli was mistaken.

Their next conjunction, according to Maginus's ephemerides, founded on the
Prutenic numbers, was April 29, 1583, in 21° of )^, the sun being then in 17°
of y ; so that the planets rising before him, in signs of short ascension and with
south latitude, this congress could not be observed by Tycho, who was mind-
ful of it, as appears by this note in page 55 of his Historia Ccelestis. May 30,
A. M. as soon as we saw Saturn after the conjunction, the following distances
between Jupiter and Saturn were taken with a radius, viz. at ih. 47 m. 3° 24';
and at ih. 50 m. 3° 24'.

The same ephemerides show the next conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter
1603, Dec. 14, at noon, in 9° 36' of I ; but the ingenious Kepler and our Sir
Christopher Heydon found it by observation 7 days sooner, or the 7 th day of
the same month in the morning, in near 8° of I ; the planets being then but
newly emerged from the sun's rays.

The ephemerides of the learned Kepler, calculated from his own Rudolphine
tables, makes the next conjunction l623, between the 7th and 8th of July, in
6° 46' of ^ ; the planet Saturn being then only 4' to the north of Jupiter : but
this first conjunction in the fiery Trigon, happening under the sun's beams, was
not observable.

By the same tables and ephemerides of Eichstade, calculated from them, these
planets met again in the 25th degree of X, between the 15th and l6th of Feb.
1643, with a degree difference of latitude.

By the joint consent of Eichstade's and our Wing's ephemerides, the same
planets were in conjunction again l663, on the 10th of October at noon, in
13° 30' of I , with 1° difl?'erence of latitude. This conjunction was observable
after sun-set in our latitude, but I hear not that any one observed it.

In each of these years there happened only one conjunction of the two
superiors: nor is it possible that there can be more, except the Heliocentric
conjunction fall near the opposition of the sun; for then there may be three,
two direct, and one retrograde, as has been within the space of 7 months, be-
tween October and May last inclusive, of which the true times are determined

rOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 63Q

from the following observations, of the distances between the two planets, in
October l682:

gd ij^h si"^. , ,. between their centres ° 34' 54'

54 .... the same repeated 34 48

12 13 49 .... between the centres 16 2

54 .... repeated 16 4

14 3 . . . . between the near limbs 15 22

17 14 10.... between the centres 20 9

17 ....repeated 20 12

21 ....again 20 14

25 .... between the near limbs .... 19 44

33 .... between the remote limbs 20 37

15 9 . . . . Saturn from Castor's heel 48 32 25

14 .... Jupiter from the same 48 45 5

17 .... repeated 48 45 20

20 .... Saturn from the same 48 32 20

50 .... between the centres again 20 30

1915 41 ... . between the further limbs 26 2

45 .... their centres 25 37

47 .... their near limbs 25 11

22 18 25 their centres 33 19

29 .... repeated 33 26

The distances between the planets were measured with the micrometer and a
16-foot glass; from the fixed stars with the sextant: those of the 12th day by
my assistant, myself being then very ill of the stone; the rest by myself.

On the 22d day the planet Jupiter was in consequence of Saturn, something
less distant from him then he had been observed on the 5th day, near the same
hour. Hence the middle time between these observations is pointed out for the
time of their true conjunction. But to determine it more accurately, I shall
examine the observations made with the sextant on the 17 th day, which being
nearest the time are most proper for this purpose.

The correct longitude of the heel of Castor is now 25 0° 50' 42^, its latitude
5 1' 40" south. The latitude of Saturn by the Caroline tables 56' 20", of Jupiter
41' 30", both north.

By the assumed latitude of Saturn 56' 20", and his distance from the heel of
Castor, observed and corrected, 48° 32' 30", I find their difference of longitude
48° 30' 37^^; therefore Saturn in Leo 19° 21' 19".

By the latitude of Jupiter assumed 41' 30', and his distance from the star 48**

640 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

45' 20''; their difference of longitude is 48° 43' 56", and Jupiter's place in Leo,
19° 34' 3g".

Hence Jupiter's place in consequence of Saturn's 1 3' 20", with which, and the
distance of their centres, observed the same night, 20' 12', I lind the true differ-
ence of their latitudes J 5' 20''; only half a minute different from what I assumed
it on the authority of the tables.

The apparent motion of Jupiter from the 14th to the 18th day of October, by
an ephemeris exactly calculated, and made agreeable to these observations, is
29' 16', of Saturn 15' 01^', both direct; hence the motion of Jupiter from Saturn
in 4 days, is 14' 15^'. I say therefore, as 4 days motion, or 14' 15'', is to 4
days or 96 hours, so is 13' 20", which Jupiter is past the conjunction of Saturn,
to 90 hours, or 3 days 18 hours, the time interlapsed since the conjunction;
which taken from the 17 th day 15 hours, the time of my observation, gives the
true time of the conjunction of the two planets on the 13th day 21 hours after
noon, or according to the common account, the 14th day at 9 o'clock in the
morning. At which time Saturn is with Jupiter in 19° O' 7-r of Leo, with 15^
more northern latitude.

The Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia, page 366, make this conjunction to have
happened the same day in the same longitude with the 11th star of Leo; whose
place they state in Leo 19° 4', latitude 0° 16' north, with 14' difference of lati-
tudes between the two planets. But their observation seems to have been made
only by the judgment of the bare eye, without an instrument, which consider-
ed, I wonder not that it differs at all, but rather that the difference is so small
from this determination.

An. l683, Jan. 19, viewing the planets, then both retrograde, with the 16-
foot glass, I found them approached within a measurable distance of each other;
when I began to take the following measures :
l683 h. m.

Jan. 19, 6 41 .. between their centres ° 33' 28^

45 . . repeated 33 24

49 . . between the remote limbs 33 52

Jan. 26, both planets being in ^ to the sun.

26, 6 3 . . between their centres 15 8

7 . . repeated j 5 6

7 0 . . between their remote limbs 15 31

12 . . between their centres 15 5

14 . . repeated 15 2

17 .. between their next limbs 14 29

20 ..repeated , 14 21

rOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 641

^ 21*".. again **

9 24 . . Jupiter from Castor's heel 46

26 . . repeated 46

28 . . Saturn from the said heel 46

30 . . repeated 46

37 .. Jup. from the bright star of the Lion's head E. 8

39 . . repeated 8

404- . . Saturn from the same star 8

424- . repeated 8

48 . . Jupiter from the Lion's heart 8

50 . . repeated 8

52 . . Saturn from the same 8

54 . . repeated 8

59 . . the Lion's heart from E in the head 12

10 3 . . the heel of Castor from the Lion's heart. ... 54
8-^ . . the heel of Castor from E S|, 46

Jan. 30, 5 28 . . between their centres

30 . . repeated

34 . . between their remote limbs

36 . . repeated

38 • . between their next limbs

5 41.. repeated

Feb. 7, 7 37 . . between their centres

40 . . repeated

From observations formerly made, I have determined the true places and

latitudes to this present time, viz. of

The heel of Castor 25 0° 51 ' 10^. Lat. 0* 5l' 40^ south.

Bright * in the Lion's head, E. Leo 16 15 27 9 41 7 north.

Lion's heart Leo 25 24 45 O 26 20 north.

And from the above recited measures, the true distances of the planets from

these stars, Jan. 26, at 9h. 40m. P. M. as follows:

Saturn from the heel of Castor 46*^

Jupiter from the same 46

Saturn from the Lion's heart 8

Jupiter from the same 8

Saturn from the bright * in the Lion's head, E 8

Jupiter from the same 8

14'

26''

18

10

18

5

8

50

8

55

42

5

42

5

29

35

29

40

18

0

17

55

29

35

29

35

58

50

34

20

24

45

11

36

11

33

11

58

12

1

11

1

11

0

28

35

28

34

9'

0*

18

10

29

40

18

0

29

40

42

10

VOL. II.

4N

642 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683,

Whence I collect the true places at this time, viz.
Of Saturn, Leo l6° 57' 10"; latitude 1° 13' 10''
Of Jupiter, Leo 17 7 10 ; latitude 1 1 30
Differences of longitude, 10 O ; of lat. 11 40

The retrograde motion of Jupiter from Saturn in 4 days, between the 26th
and 30th of this month, by my correct ephemeris, is 12' \5". I say therefore,
as 12' 15''' is to 4 days or 96 hours; so is lo' O", the difference of the planets*
present longitudes, to 78 hours, or 3 days 6 hours, wliich therefore added to
the time of that observation, Jan. 26 d Qhf, gives the true time of the con-
junction, Jan. 29, 16 hours after noon, or according to the common account
Jan. 30, at 4 o'clock in the morning. At which time both the planets are in
$1 l6°41-f', with 114- min. difference of latitude or distance from each other.
Which is further confirmed by the measured distances of the planets on the
30th at night before recited.

On the 26th day, at gh. 40m., the sun*s true place was by my tables in ;x:f
17° 214-'; so that he was now about -^ of a degree past their opposition.

Towards the latter end of the following April, the planet Jupiter began to ap-
proach Saturn again, both being now direct; the 28th at night, with the 16-
foot glass and micrometer, I measured the distances as below :

April 28, 10^ 21"^ ... . between their centres ° 32' 35^

23 .... repeated 32 33

24 .... between their next limbs 32 4

26 .... repeated 32 2

May 7, 8 59 ... . Jupiter from the Lion's heart .10 59 o

9 1 ....repeated 10 59 o

34- ... . Saturn from the Lion's heart 10 58 50

5 ....repeated 10 58 50

11.... Jupiter from E in the Lion's head 8 55 35

15 .... repeated 8 55 40

17 .... Saturn from the same star 8 39 40

18 .... repeated 8 39 40

With the Micrometer.

30 .... between their centres 15 33

33 ....repeated 15 37

35 .... between their next limbs 15 3

36 .... repeated 15 o

40 .... between their remote limbs ]6 2

42 ....repeated 15 58

11

45

11

4

10

55

10

45

20

2

20

2

34

thej

4

fixed

58

50

59

0

39

40

55

35

rOL. XIH.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ()43

With the Sextant again.

May 9, 10** 20" .... Jupiter from B in IT)^ 38

23 .... repeated 38

26 .... Saturn from the same star 38

28 .... repeated 38

1 J , 9 28 ... . between their centres

31 .... repeated

16, 9 22 ... . between their centres — dubious

From these observations I state the distances of the planets from the fixed
stars May 7, at 9h. 5 m. P. M. as follows :

Saturn from the Lion's heart , 10

Jupiter from the same 10

Saturn from E in the Lion's head 8

Jupiter from the same 8

Hence the true longitude of Saturn ^ 14° 27' 41''; lat. 1° 12' 4&' north

of Jupiter ^. ... 14 26 37 ; lat. O 56 43 north
Difference of longitude 1 4 ; lat. O 1 6 3

The difference of latitudes something exceeds the distance measured with the
micrometer, by reason that the wind then shaking the sextant permitted us not
to be so exact as usual, but the difference, being less than half a minute, I
esteem inconsiderable.

The diurnal motion of Jupiter from Saturn was now 3' 15''. Therefore as
3' 15", one day's motion, is to one day or 24 hours, so l' 4" the distance of
Jupiter from the c5 with Saturn, to 8 hours; the interval between the observa-
tion and following conjunction, which was therefore I7h. after noon, or accord-
ing to the vulgar reckoning, May the 8th, at five o'clock in the morning. At
which time the true place of the planets is SI 14° 28^', the difference of their
latitudes 1 5' 40", Saturn being so much more northerly than Jupiter.

In all the best esteemed astronomical tables extant, the mean motions of the
planet Saturn are too swift, of Jupiter too slow, considerably ; hence it came to
pass that they made the direct conjunctions some days later, the retrograde
earlier, than they were found by observation.

Traite de VOrgane de VOuie, par Mom. Du Verney, 8vo. ^ Paris, l683.

N° 149, p. 259.

This work is divided into 3 parts, the first of which contains an anatomical
description of the organ of hearing. • The 2nd the use of all the parts of that
organ, grounded on the mechanism of the whole. The 3d and last, the dis-

4n 2

644 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

eases incident to this organ, with a full account of their causes and remedies.
The whole is illustrated by 1 6 plates, in which the several parts of the ear are
(for the clearer understanding thereof) represented larger than nature.

An Account of two Letters of M. Perrault and M. Mariotte, concerning Vision.
Printed at Paris, l682. N° 149, p. 265.

The occasion of these 2 letters was an observation of Mr. Mariotte*s, that
any object is not seen when the species light upon the basis of the optic nerve.
The experiment on which it is grounded is this : take a piece of white paper
of 6 inches diameter, and fasten it on a dark-coloured wall, that it may be
level with the eye ; take another small piece of paper, and place it towards the
left hand, at 2 feet distance from the former, but about 2 inches higher on the
wall ; if you then remove to the distance of 8 or Q feet, and close the left
eye, fixing the right on the smaller piece of paper, the larger paper will then
quite disappear.

It is not at all doubted but the image which should appear falls just on the
base of the optic nerve; it is also certain that the retina is to be found in that
place, but the choroid not ; which gives a very fair suspicion to M. Mariotte,
-that the choroid is the seat of vision, and not the retina.

The novelty of this opinion has found many opposers, and among the rest
M. Perrault, whose arguments in the first letters are in short reduced to 3
heads. 1 . If the choroid were the seat of vision, its function would be hindered
by the branches of blood-vessels lying in the retina. 2. The choroid should
not be rugged and unequal, nor hard and thick, nor have a slime or dirtiness
on it, to hinder the impression of light, nor want a communication with the
optic nerve. 3. If the want of vision in the foregoing experiment may be
solved by any of the two probable reasons here offered, then there is no need of
discharging the retina.

To the first of these M. Mariotte answers: that there are defects in vision,
caused by the blood-vessels in the retina ; but these defects are not sensible
when we look with both eyes, for there are no vessels that lie so near the optic
axis as to hinder a direct view, and in an oblique, one eye helps the other, it
being difficult for the rays to fall on a like plane in each eye. Again, these
vessels that are nearest the optic axis are no thicker than a hair, or the 240th
part of an inch, and being in the surface of the retina, are at some distance
from the choroid, so as to let rays enough pass under, for the distinguishing of
objects not very small. The vessels also that carry the blood are clear and pel-
lucid, causing a refraction that is helpful to vision. Here also may enter some

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL THANSXCTIONS. 645

general considerations; as, that the impression of a luminous object remains
some time in the organ ; that some fibres being strongly moved, others near
them are also in motion ; that the eyes are always in motion, and very hard to
be fixed in one place, though it were desired.

To the 2nd head he answers, that the concavity of the choroid cannot be
very rugged; for, on dissecting an eye and removing the retina, the surface
of the choroid has reflected an object as distinctly as a concave speculum. That
there appears no soil or dirtiness till the outward cuticle is broke, and then the
organ is disordered. As for the thickness of it, he says, he finds it in a man
but as a sheet of paper, or the pia mater in the brain. That the blood-vessels
are woven together with the nerves, on which account there may be as true a
sense of light in them as there is of pain in the hand when it is pricked with
the point of a needle; and perhaps the presence of veins and arteries in a mem-
ber is absolutely necessary to sensibility.

To the 3d head, where M. Perrault gives reasons why there is no vision on
the base of the optic nerve, as first supposing that vision is to be made on a
smooth surface, the optic nerve, which is a bundle of fibres, is not smoothed
at its first entering the retina, but afterwards when the fibres are dissolved, and
spread into a coat, as when rags are made into paper. Here M. Mariotte, if I
rightly comprehend him, denies that the retina consists of fibres, affirming it to
have nothing but a mucousness, with some veins and arteries. But in an ex-
periment of Dr. Briggs's, a retina put into a glass of fair water, and drawn
about under water, both for the expanding and magnifying it, appeared plainly
to have a fibrous texture, like that of a piece of very fine lawn. In the 2nd
place, M. Perrault supposes that the choroid being pierced by the optic nerve,
there may come a light through the parts of the eye, the back way, into the
optic nerve, which would spoil the sense of another light coming through the
pupil. But this M. Mariotte will by no means agree to.

Historta Naturalis Helvetice Curiosa. Authore Joh. Jacoho JVagnerOy M. D,

Tiguri. N° 149, p. 268.

The author professes that he undertook to write the natural history of Swit-
zerland on the invitation of my lord Bacon, and with an intention thereby to
promote a true experimental philosophy. The work is divided into 7 sections,
treating of the limits and nature of the soil ; of the Alps, the height, the ice,
snow, waters, &c. ; of the lakes, rivers, cataracts, &c. ; of the people, beasts,
birds, fishes, insects, serpents, trees, plants, fossils, metals, &c.

646 PHILOSOPHTCAT. TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

Johannis Jacohi Zimmermanni Cometo-scopia ; or^ three Astronomical Relations
concerning the Comets that have appeared in the Years 168O, iSsi, l682.
Printed at Stutgard in 4to. Anno l682. N° 149, p. 272,

The author of these descriptions divides every relation into 3 parts: first an
historical account, when and how the comets appeared, and in what manner he
observed them ; secondly, an astronomical calculation of their places and mo-
tions; and thirdly, an astro-theological prognostic of their effects. The prog-
nostic which he gives, is grounded on the vulgar supposition, that comets are
signs of such mischiefs and miseries as happen to men after a dissolute and irre-
gular life. As for the natural cause of the first comet, he thinks, that in the
same manner as the great conjunction of planets in Sagittarius produced a comet
in l663; so, by a new conjunction of Sol, Venus, Mercury, and Luna, in the
same sign, and in opposition to Jupiter, the like effect might be taken notice
of. But about the substance and original cause of comets, he has no mind to
say any thing, being doubtful what they truly are, the dispute of their parallax
not being yet fully decided, and so of their matter, whether ethereal or elemen-
tary, the question not resolved. But to show the agreement of this comet with
others that have been observed, he has composed a convenient table, contain-
ing a list of ail comets, that ever have been described by historians and astro-
nomers ; setting down first, the year before or after Christ when they have ap-
peared. 2. The place or country where they have been seen. 3. The authors
who have mentioned them. 4. The month or time of the year when first
seen. 5. The time of the day, whether in the evening or morning. 6. The
name and shape of the comets. 7. The situation, or to which part of the ho-
rizon their motion proceeded. 8. The whole arch or quantity of degrees which
they ran through. Q. The number or quantity of days which they were seen.
10. The degrees of their swiftest motion. ] 1. The degrees of the length of
their tail. 12. The direction of their tails to any part of the heaven. And 13.
The effects, mischiefs, and strange accidents, that have happened after their
appearance. Among these some have been observed in the shape of the sun,
some of the moon and Venus, sometimes there have been 3 or 4 comets toge-
ther as in the year 843 and 1529, ^c* ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ number of all in'
the space of 4000 years amounts to 370 comets. To which now must be
joined another, or the third comet that was seen in the year l682, in the month
of August.

TOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 647

A further Account of some Rock-plants groiving in the Lead Mines of Mendip
Hills, mentioned in the Philosophical Transaction^^ N° I29. By Mr. John
Beaumont, Jun. of Stony Easton in Somersetshire, N° 150, p. 276*

. The particulars set forth In these figures, more than what have been observed
by others, in reference to those rock-plants, are as follows :

1. A curious radix, somewhat more entire than elsewhere to be found, on
which those rock-plants sometimes grow, though it be manifest that they often
grow also from plain roots.

2. Several diversified tops of other radixes.

3. The manifest tapering of those rock-plants.

4. Bores of those rock-plants, with 4, 6, and 7, inlets in them; with other
differences in their rays and jointings.

The particular explanation of the figures is below, though it be but short,
and not so full as the descriptions I have given of those rock-plants in my for-
mer letters, to which I refer the curious reader.*

The Explanation of the Figures, plata '21.

Fig. 1, an entire radix, aa foreseams in 2 of the feet wanting in Mr. Lister's
figures. 2. The same radix inverted, 3. A broken piece of a radix with rays
on the top. 4. The inside of the same. 5. A plate of a radix with the impres-
sion of an oval joint on the top. 6. The top of a radix with rays, and the
plates curiously wrought. 7- The inside of the same. 8, g, 10, 11, 12. Other
tops of radixes. 13, 14, 15, l6, 17, 18, IQ. Several sorts of plates that com-
pose the radixes. 20. A rock-plant growing from a plain root, branched several
ways and tapering. 21, 22. Two trunks of rock-plants tapering, and with
marks of branches torn off. 23. A rock-plant with oval joints growing twist-
ing. 24. Another plant with oval joints growing on a scabrous root. 25. A
trunk of a rock-plant growing without joint, like coral. 26. Sprouts of mineral
coral growing in a heap together. 27- An intorted heap of rock-plants growing
on a piece of limestone rock, somewhat resembling the others, being thick set
with edges, but having no joints. 28, 29. Two pieces of the summitates or
fastigia, mentioned by Mr. Lister in the Philosophical Transactions, N° 100.
30 31 . Two single joints of rock-plants with 7 inlets in the bore. 32, 33. Two
single joints with () inlets in the bore. 34, 35, 36. Three joints with 5 inlets
in the bore. 37, 38. Two single joints with 4 inlets in the bore. 39. A single

* The petrifactions described in this paper are of a similar nature with those described in a former
paper by Dr. Lister; they all belong to the coral tribe, and the reader is referred to the above-men-
tioned paper for an explanatory note.

648 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

oval joint, the oval in the upper part of it, standing clear contrary to the oval
in the lower part. 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54,
55, round and oval single joints, differing in their rays and other ways of
jointing.

Extract of two Letters from Mr. Sampson Birch, of Stafford, concerning dn
Extraordinary Birth in Staffordshire, with Rejections hy Edw. Tyson, M. D.
F.R.S. N'^150, p. 281.

The wife of one Taylor, in Heywood, Staffordshire, about 24 or 25 years of
age, being married about a year, in January last fell in labour, and not being
able to be delivered, after 5 or 6 days, the child being dead, the surgeon
brought it away by strength with instruments, and afterwards the after-birth;
but then perceived that there was still remaining something besides, which lay
separate from the child and after-birth, but very firmly adhering to the womb,
so that in separating this, it was much more difficult and painful to her than
bringing away the dead child, and orrasinnerl a large flux of blood.

The thing itself was sent by Mr. Birch to Dr. Flot at Oxford, and by him
to the Royal Society ; so that having an opportunity of observing it, I shall
here give not only a figure of this strange body, but add to the accounts of it
in the letters what I think material. But must premise that it was mentioned
in them, that the child was perfectly formed ; that the mother was since reco-
vered and walks abroad ; that before marriage she was never troubled with any
remarkable distempers ; and that this body I am going to describe was not ob-
served to be included in any cystis, the secundine being all brought away be-
fore it.

The size and shape of this preternatural body will be easily conceived by the
figure (pi. 18, fig. 7) which is made as exact and large as the thing itself. In
the upper part was a round protuberant bone, 3^ inches in compass, covered
with a thick fleshy skin, beset with short hairs. On the top of this bone in a
circle were placed 8 dentes molares, or those double teeth we call grinders.
These so exactly resembled teeth as to their shape, whiteness, hardness, and in
all other circumstances, that they can certainly be nothing else. A little below
this, in another bone, which was fastened to the former, were placed 5 other
teeth, or dentes molares ; these were not so in a cluster together as the former,
but 4 of them made almost a straight line, with some distance in the middle,
and the 5th a little out of rank, being placed below the 2 uppermost.

The remaining part of this monstrous body, composed a large cystis or bag,
filled with a liquid slimy matter, but not foetid. This cystis on the outside was
smooth, appeared somewhat red, and was about the thickness of the scrotum.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 649

But farther to Increase the wonder of this so extraordinary a birth, we ob-
served a little below the bone first mentioned, a large lock of hair of a bright
brown-colour, having its end intricated and entangled in a large quantity of
hair of a more faded and yellowish colour, which was fastened to the end of the
cystis opposite to the teeth. But that this lock of hair was of a considerable
length, we easily guessed by the several small curls observed in this yellowish
hair, which were of the same bright colour with the former lock.

In the middle of the circle of the 8 teeth I observed a small hole, but which
did not lead far; and though these teeth, hair, and a strong imagination might
create a fancy of some monstrous head here designed to be formed, yet consi-
dering how many and far more considerable parts were wanting, I cannot but
rather choose with the sceptic ociri^siv, and suspend my belief thereof, or with
Pliny to say, hoc nobis miraculum, sibi ludibrium ingeniosa finxit natura.

What most I can parallel it with are those instances I have formerly given in
the Philosophical Collections, N° 2, of teeth, bones, and hair, I have met with
in the ovariums of women ; as in one a dens caninus, or eye-tooth, on the
outside of the cystis, and within, a large quantity of a fine white long hair, as
in fig. 8, pi. 18. In a second woman 3 dentes molares, or grinders, perfectly
formed, and a 4th budding forth, all set in their distinct sockets in a bone, as
in fig. 9, and in this cystis a great deal of yellowish hair. In a third woman,
dissected by Dr. Sampson, in each testicle (ovarium) was a large tumor or
cystis, which inclosed a very large quantity of hair, and there was fastened to
the sides of them 2 bones, represented in fig. 10 and II, which though not
teeth, yet as to their substance, though not shape, approached something near
them ; and a like instance. Dr. Needham has informed me, he has met with,
of teeth and hair in the same part.*

But our present instance differs from the former, in that this was in the
womb, and firmly adhering to it, the others in the ovarium. In this the hair
was on the outside the cystis, and rooted in its tunicle ; in the others it was
contained within it. But as the child, which was perfectly formed, and with
much difficulty at last was brought from this woman, I doubt not at first be-
ing included in the egg^ descended from the ovarium: so likewise this subven-
taneous egg, I question not, might be transmitted from the same place; and
nature, who is never idle, being disappointed of forming in this a perfect foetus,
made the best of what the matter would afford, and might produce the teeth,
bones, and hair, which may be reckoned as animal vegetables.

* A case of this sort is also recorded in the 79th vol. of the Transactions by Dr. Baillie, whose
reflections hereupon are well deserving attention.
VOL. II. 4 O

ObO PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

How liable these parts in women are to tumors, there is none who have been
conversant in morbid dissections but must be sensible, insomuch that those fre-
quent instances I have met with have fully persuaded me that there is no part
in the body so often the seat and causes of dropsies in women as the ovarium ;
a too luxuriant afflux of humours easily extending these minute eggs into large
and sometimes most prodigious cystises, that sometimes I have taken some gal-
lons of water out of them, where I have found them entire, though most times
the vast quantity of waters bursts the membrane, and so it empties itself into
the cavity of the abdomen.

Extract of a Letter from M. de S. Maurice, M. D. to M. de la Closure, a Phy^
sician of Auheterre, April 26, l682, concerning the Formation of a Foetus in
the Testicle (Ovarium)', taken from the Journal de Medicine of Jan. l683,
by M. VAbbe de la Roque, at Paris. ]N° 150, p. 285.

I think, sir, that after what lately happened to Madam de St. Mere, we ought
no longer to doubt of the formation of the foetus in the testicles (ovaria) of
women, and consequently of the existence of eggs. This lady had been safely
brought to bed 8 times, and after having continued 5 years without being with
child, about 3 months since she suspected herself to be fallen into that con-
dition again. But on the 22d instant, after she was up in the morning in very
good health, she fell into faintings, which made her lose absolutely her pulse
from that moment, without depriving her of her understanding or speech. In
the evening I found her cold and wholly without any pulse, her countenance
deadish, and covered with a clammy and cold sweat, having still an entire un-
derstanding and her speech strong. She complained of colicky pains, which
were quickly followed by all the forerunners of an imminent travail ; she called
her surgeon and died in his arms.

By desire of Mr. de St. Mere the body was opened. In the epigastric region
all the entrails were found floating in blood. I caused 2 lb to be taken out
with a spoon, to avoid changing the situation of the parts, after which, seeing
that there remained in the right flank a prodigious quantity which was coagu-
lated, I tried myself to take it out with my hand, but was surprised, when
among the first clots which I drew forth, I found a little foetus about the size
of a thumb, and a third less in length, all very distinctly formed, and in which
was manifestly discovered the sex of a boy, but naked and without covering.
Two fingers from the same place I found the right cornu of the womb ; but my
amazement was doubled, when I found the testicle (ovarium) torn longwise and
through the middle on the side, that it did not touch the tube, and all its ca-

VOL. Xril.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 651

vity full of clotted blood. I no longer doubted that this was the place where
this infant was formed, and I conceived that having acquired in this place a
growth too great to be able to fall in time; and having continued to grow
there, without being able to come forth, it had at length broken its prison
by stretching it.

I was confirmed in my opinion when comparing this testicle (ovarium) with
the left, I found it at least four times larger, its size approaching that of a hen's
tgg; and the left being not greater than a little chesnut; it was all red without
and within, besides the clotted blood that it contained ; whereas the left was
pale and full of little grains of the colour and consistency of yellow tallow.

I examined]the tube on the right side; and I could not find that this infant had
ever entered there ; it was in all things like the left tube.

Lastly, I examined the body of the womb with all the care and exactness
that might be. It appeared to me every where without any rent, and in a state
purely natural : I only observed, that it was a little larger and softer than it is
found in women who die without being with child : it was all as Dr. Harvey has
described it, in the first month of pregnancy. I caused a probe to be put into
its cavity by the vagina, and then to be cut open, and I found not the least
sign of conception. Indeed the vessels of the interior membrane appeared to
me full of blood.

Authors speak of certain foetuses found in the tubes ; and of others that have
been found in the cavity of the belly, neither the womb, nor the tubes being
any way torn: but I do not think that any person hitherto has been able
to show, that the conception is made in the testicle or ovarium, as it seems to
me that the fact, which I have now related, manifestly demonstrates.

^n Account of some Experiments made at several Meetings of the Royal Society,
By Fred. Slare, M. D. F. R. S. and one of the Coll. of Physicians, with some
short Applications of them to physical Matters. N° 150, p. 289.

ExPT. I. j4 Parallel betwixt Lightning and Phosphorus.
In order to keep the solid phosphorus from wasting, I usually placed it at the
bottom of a glass of water. Having several of these glasses disposed on a table
in view, whilst I lay on my bed, I could observe several flashes of light that
successively passed through the water, and made such bright and vigorous co-
ruscations in the air, as would surprize and afFrighten one not used to the phe-
nomenon. This fiery meteor passes somewhat contracted through the incum-
bent water, but expands itself as soon as it gets above it. To make these
experiments to advantage, the glass ought to be deep and cylindrical, and not

above 3-4ths filled with water.

4 02

652 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

If we compare these appearances with lightning, we may observe that hght-
ning, which comes at intervals, passes uninterrupted the most condensed clouds
and is not extinguished or obstructed by the greatest storms or cataracts of
water; but like the beams of the sun, or any other fire, freely passes through
glass and water.

This phosphorus in the abovementioned state emits those flashes of light
only in warm weather, a certain temper of the air being necessary to produce
the effect, for in the winter or cold weather I never observed it. — The warm
season of the summer is most productive of lightning.

The abovementioned flash of light is not apt to kindle or burn any com-
bustible matter, as I found by holding my finger in it unmolested; but not
trusting to that, I held in the flame, paper, flax, and such materials as are apt
to take fire, which it did no more than when we projected the light of the
moon by a concave glass on the like bodies. — Such an inoffensive flame that of
lightning is generally observed to be. But

The matter of the phosphorus, whilst in a more condensed body, will easily
be accended by the warmth of the air, or by the immediate beams of the sun,
and then will burn very furiously, with such a penetrating fire as will not easily
be extinguished. — So lightning, when condensed or contracted, and wrapt up
in a vehicle of air, so that it does not so easily diffuse itself through the yield-
ing aether, will then set fire to houses, trees, &c. and do great mischief.

The phosphorus, whilst burning, acts the part of corrosive; and when it
goes out it resolves into a menstruum that dissolves gold, iron, and other
metals. — Thus lightning melts down gold, iron, lead, and other metals.*
ExPT. 11. By mixing tiuo Liquors, actually cold, to produce such sparkling and

Jiery Bodies, as are not only visible in the Dark, but at Noon-Day, in the

enlightened Air.

This experiment was thus made. We took between 10 and 20 grains of
the solid phosphorus, and caused it to melt in as much water as would just
cover it, which was about a drachm: after it was actually cold we poured it
into 2 oz. of oil of vitriol ; the mixture being well shaken together, it first
lieated, and then threw up sach fiery balls, that like so many stars adhered to
the sides of the glass, and continued to bum for some time.
ExPT. III. By the Addition of an Oil to the foregoing Mixture, to produce

a Flame.

This is done by only adding a small quantity of oil of turpentine. With-
out shaking the vessel, the mixture takes fire, and burns very furiously. This

* Modern discoveries have furnished a more satisfactory phenomenon to compare with lightning,
namely, that of electricity.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 653

experiment ought to be made in an open vessel, where the air has free access.
This succeeded with oil of petroleum, and de lateribus : but sallad oil and spirit
of wine could not be made to flame.

The ingredients that compose this burning mixture, are apart cold to the
touch, and some of them in their operations : thus, water and oil of vitriol are
cooling in their nature; but these in conjunction cause a great heat, which soon
excite the agile particles of the phosphorus to an actual fire; and this meeting
with an inflammable ingredient, such as oil of turpentine, or the like, produces
as considerable a flame as boiling oil is wont to do.

ExPT. IV. Being a Refutation of Borrichius's Experiment that pretends to

Accension,

We took, according to direction, 4 oz. of fresh drawn spirit of Venice tur-
pentine, to 6 oz. of aquafortis, newly drawn and very strong. We mixed
them together in a glass vessel, and placed it in the sun beams. After half an
hour's patience, the liquors began to ferment furiously, insomuch that a very
great smoke was raised by this means, which was directed to be kept down by
a cork that stopped the vessel. This condensed red fume represented flame,
by reason of the beams of the sun, that were permitted to shine upon it : but
I was assured that this was a great fallacy. I was willing to give the experiment
every advantage, which made me perform it where the beams of the sun were
admitted ; but this very circumstance giving ground to the mistake, I desired
leave to make the experiment in a dark room, where we should better discern
any real productions of light ; being assured, that the action of the liquors
would as certainly succeed in the darkened room as in a light one. The expe-
riment was repeated, and the action of the liquors was no less vigorous than in
the former instance. And flax, being considered as a very combustible matter,
was suspended in the fume: but none of the persons present could discover
the least spark of fire or glimpse of light; so that the flax remained untouched,
and the fermenting liquors gave no light, fire, or flame. Only take this cau-
tion ; keep your candles at a distance, for the fume will soon take fire at any
actual flame, and set the liquors a burning, and so it may impose upon
the careless.*

* Borrichius's assertion respecting the inflammation of oil of tiupentine by aquafortis, (nitrous
acid) is not disproved by this failure. Supposing Dr. Slare to have employed a well rectified oil of
turpentine, and a concentrated, smoking nitrous acid j yet his manner of mixing the oU and acid
together might not have been proper. It is not stated that the acid was poured upon the oil at dif-
ferent intervals, and not all at oncej though this circumstance is requisite to the success of the ex-
periment. Certain it is that oil of turpentine, like other essential oils, may readily be inflamed by

654 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

ExPT. V. Being a new Experiment with Ebullition and Incalescence.

Among the various mixtures, wherein great heats and effervescences with
much ebullition were produced, none were so considerable as this, which was also
shown at the same meeting. On 1 oz. of spirit of nitre, if you pour 2 or 3
drachms, gradually, of the highest rectified spirit of wine, the heat and ebulli-
tion will be exceedingly great. And whereas in the former experiment you must
wait some time for the effervescence, here it is performed in an instant. So
that I had more reason to expect, from the mighty action of these liquors on
each other, a production of actual fire or flame, than from Borrichius's experi-
ment. Possibly some may be ready to imitate this experiment, which may fail
them, unless they observe some little directions. It must be the red spirit of
nitre, and a very high rectified spirit of wine. In the next place, you must
first pour into the glass the spirit of nitre, which is the heavier liquor, and
then the spirit of wine after; for if you invert the order, there will be no
ebullition.

ExPT. VI. Of Cold produced without Ebullition, giving some Account of Hyste'

rical Paroxysms,

In about a pint of water we dissolved a quarter of a pound of sal ammoniac;
when the solution was found to be so very cold to the touch, that we needed
no weather glass (thermometer) to convince us of the effect.*

ExPT. VII. Of Cold, produced by a very great Ebullition; wherein the cold and
hot Fits of an Ague are resembled by a mixture of Liquors.

If we use in this experiment any acid, whether of vinegar, verjuice, wood-
sorrel, oranges, lemons, or perhaps yet milder ones; by casting into these
juices a volatile salt of human blood, I always observed a notable ebullition
would ensue, which I never could find would heat as such boiling liquors are
apt to do ; but on the contrary, affected a good weather glass (thermometer) so
as to make the liquor descend, which was a manifest token of cold. Here I
found that the higher the acid was, the greater the ebullition and the cold

commixtion with a concentrated nitrous acid. This effect, however, may be greatly promoted, by
adding to the nitrous acid a small quantity of strong vitriolic acid.

* In a manner by no means satisfactory to philosophers or physicians, the author endeavours to
account for the paroxysms of hysteria, upon the supposition that the salts of the blood being diluted
by a super-abundance of lymph, a cold effect is produced, as in the abovementioned solution of sal
ammoniac in water.

VOL. XIII.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 655

would be, which is very remarkable. For this very reason I made use of very
strong vinegar, dephlegmed by freezing; by this mixture we came much nearer
the freezing point. But since it proves troublesome to prepare this vinegar,
and because it can be done only at certain times, I have most commonly made
the experiment with spirit of venus, or verdigrise, which is the highest vinegar
in the world: with this the cold will be most sensible to the touch, and most
conspicuous on the weather glass (thermometer.) For by this mixture I have
in summer made a weather glass (thermometer) to descend below the tempera-
ment of cold fountain water, six inches at least, which brought it so near the
freezing mark, that it scarcely wanted half an inch.* But at the same time
the liquor swells and takes up more room than before, and will not be contained
in shallow vessels. In this experiment we have some things very rare, that a
great and violent motion of two dissenting liquors should be so far from pro-
ducing heat as to produce a notable degree of cold, and that too with a consider-
able expansion of their parts. Here we might instance in an apposite and as
unexpected an experiment, where an effect contrary to our common observation
happens; and that is thus, if you mix with oil of vitriol a quantity of water,
a great heat will follow, without an expansion of these liquors.

The Anatomy of Plants : with an Idea of a Philosophical History of Plants :

and several other Lectures, read before the Royal Society. By Nehemiah Grew,

M. D. F. R. S. and of the Coll. of Physicians, 1082. N° 150, p. 303.

This work, which was begun about IQ years ago, has been carried on

by the special appointment of the Royal Society; and by their order is now

made public.

The idea prefixed to the anatomy gives us an account of the materials and
methods necessary for making a complete history of plants; which are copiously
proposed under these five general heads of inquiry, viz. 1. Of those things
which are of more external consideration about plants ; as their figures, &c.
2. Of their compounding parts; as vessels, &c. 3. Of their liquors and other
contents. 4. Of their principles; as salts, &c. 5. Of their aliment; as water
and other means of growth. Aiming chiefly at the discovery of the reason of
vegetation, and of the virtues of plants. The anatomy is divided into 4 books.
In the first, all the observations, except one or two, are made with the naked
eye : in order that a proof might first be given, how far it is possible for us to
go without the help of glasses, which many ingenious men want; and more,
the patience to manage them. It begins with the seed sown, and so proceeds

* The author's attempt to apply this experiment to the explanation of the cold and hot fit of an
ague, is in the highest degree unphilosophical, and is for that reason omitted in this abridgment.

656 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683,

to the root, trunk, branch, leaf, flower, fruit, and lastly to the seed also to be
sown again; for each, allowing one whole chapter. In every chapter, the ana-
tomy of the part being first given, the uses are subjoined. And there being two
chapters for the seed ; in the first is shown the manner of its growth ; and in
the last, the manner of its generation.

The 2d book is divided into two parts. The first contains the anatomy of
roots : which is here prosecuted both with the naked eye, and with the micros-
cope. It begins with some special remarks on the motions, and some other
properties of roots. Next proceeds to the anatomy of the skin, bark, wood,
and pith : giving the description of several sorts of sap-vessels ; as also of the
air vessels or lungs ; and of the bladders and fibres of the pith and all the pa-
renchymous parts of a plant ; and showing the elegant and accurate work of
nature in all. Particularly, that the pith is a rete mirabile; herein more curious,
than that in the brain, as its fibres are not only exquisitely small, but very re-
gularly composed together.

The 2d part, gives a large account of the vegetation of roots : showing how
the ground is prepared for it ; how the sap is imbibed, and distributed to the
several parts ; how the several parts are nourished ; how they are formed ; and
how they come to be situated or disposed; how roots obtain their different size
and shape ; how their diff^erent motion, and different age : how the contents of
the several parts are made; and how their odours, colours, and tastes. And
what is here said, is also applicable to the same parts in the trunk, &c.

The 3d book, is also divided into two parts. The first, contains the anatomy
of trunks and branches, being here prosecuted in like manner as the former
of roots. Further showing the admirable artifice of nature, in the structure
and composition of all the parts of a plant.

The second part, insists on the further clearing of the following particulars,
viz. The motion and course of the sap ; the motion and course of the air; the
structure of the parts ; the generation of liquors ; the figuration of trunks ;
the motion of trunks ; and their nature, as fitted for mechanical use.

The 4th book, is divided into 4 parts. The first treats of leaves. In which
are described, first, their protections and folds : then, those things which ap-
pear on their surface; the apparent position of their fibres. Next the aper-
tures, parts, and curious texture of leaves : and the time and manner in which
they are formed. Where the author designs an ascent to the highest step in
the business of generation.

The 2d part, treats on flowers. In which are described the three general
parts of the flower, viz. the empalement; the foliature; and the attire, both
the seminiforra, and the florid, in which there is a great deal of curious and

VOL. Xllf.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 657

unexpected variety; which nature has bestowed upon these parts, next to the
seed Itself, of greatest use. For every plant being «pp£u&0nXuf,* the attire answers
to the genitals of male and female both together ; and the powder which they
disburse, let fall on the uterus, is the sperm of plants. The time also, in which
the flower is formed, is observed, not to be the same year in which it appears,
as hath hitherto been thought, but the year before. Hereto is subjoined an
appendix; being a method proposed for the ready finding, by the leaf and flower,
to what sort any plant appertains.

The 3d part, of fruits. In which are described these following, viz. an apple,
lemon, cucumber^ pear, plum, grape, gooseberry, and some others; which
are so many several sorts of the fleshy uterus. Next, of the seed-case or
membranous uterus. And lastly, the use of the several parts, both to the fruit
and seed, is set down. Particularly^ the manner of the ejaculation of the
seed in noli-me-tangere.

The last part, of seeds. Wherein we have first a description of the various
and elegant figures of seeds. Next, an account of their number, and several
motions, and for what purpose they are made. As for instance, in the seed of
hart's tongue, and all that tribe, which are shot off with a spring contrived for
it. The annual product of these seeds from one plant being about a million ;
of which, ten thousand are not so large as a white pepper corn. After this,
the description and use of the covers of the seed, and of the vitellum ; of the
several parts of the foetus or true seed ; and lastly, a further account of the rare
contrivance of the stone in fruits, and of the three membranes over the seed,
in order to the generation and growth of the same. Thus far the anatomy.
The follmving Lectures are these : —

I. Of the nature, causes, and power of mixture. In which a foundation is
laid for these axioms, viz. That the whole business of the material world is
nothing else but mixture. That natural and artificial mixture are the same, as
also the causes of both. And that therefore, so far as we can govern mixture,
we may do what nature does. As in rendering all bodies sociable or miscible,
in making artificial bodies, in imitation of those of nature's own production, &c.
— II. Experiments in consort, of the luctation arising from the mixture of se-
veral menstruums with all sorts of bodies. Being a specimen of a natural his-
tory of the materia medica. — III. An essay on the various proportions, wherein
the lixivial salt is found in plants. — IV. A discourse concerning the essential and
marine or muriatic salts of plants. — V. A discourse on the colours of plants. —

VI. A discourse on the diversities and causes of tastes, chiefly in plants. —

VII. Experiments in concert on the solution of salts in water.

* The male and female organs are not always within one corolla, or upon one plant
VOL. II« 4 P

658 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

Excerpta ex Literis III. et Clariss. Firorum ad Nob. Ampliss. et Consultiss. D.
Joh. Hevelium Cons. Gedanensem perscriptis, Judicia de Rebus AstronomiciSf
ejusdemque Scriptis, exhibentia, Studio ac Opera, Johannis Erici Olhoffii Secre-
tarii Gedani, Anno l683, Ato. N° 150, p. 308.

A work chiefly in praise of the astronomical labours and merits of Hevelius.

Tractatus de Podagra et Hydrope. A Tho. Sydenham, M. D. Londinif l683.

N° 150, p. 309.

The 1st of these treatises contains an admirable description (accompanied
with pathological and practical remarks) of the gout, a disease with which the
author himself was afflicted. The other exhibits the author's mode of treating
dropsies, in which he employed the most powerful evacuants avw xat Karw, inter-
posing opiates, and completing the cure by bitters, chalybeates and aromatics.

Account of the Earthquake at Oxford, ^c. Sept. 17, l683. By Tho. Pigot,

Esq. F.R.S. N° 151, p. 311.

The season when this earthquake happened is a time in which such effects
are most commonly experienced, if we may credit Aristotle, who tells us that
they are most frequent in Spring and Autumn ; when there is generally a greater
abundance of vapours, and a larger quantity of nitre exhaled; all which ingre-
dients may conspire to the producing of an earthquake. For if we consider
how capable they are of a large expansion, how forcible they are when rarefied
in vessels, closed and placed over the fire; in ^olypiles, from which they break
out, with forcible blasts, or in winds, which frequently proceed from the rare-
faction of such principles, we may suppose that those vapours, which produce
such great commotions in the air, may cause a considerable disturbance in the
earthy when pent and locked up.

As to the weather at the time, the latter part of the first week in September
was so rainy, that most people were apprehensive of a flood; and on the Qth
there fell some very considerable showers in the afternoon; but from that time
it cleared up, and to the end of the next week continued very warm and plea-
sant weather. The l6th, in the evening, was inclineable to frost; and the next
morning it was very hard frost for the season, and then about 7 o'clock, the
day being very clear and calm, the earthquake happened. The like observations
of cold preceding, are in Dr. Wallis's account of an earthquake, N° 10 of the
Philosophical Transactions; as also in that of Mr. Boyle, N° 11. The height
of the quicksilver in the barometer was as considerable as at any time these

VOL. XIII.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. GSQ

three years; which, together with a remarkable calmness of the air, a matter
generally considered as one of the circumstances which accompany earthquakes,
and by many reckoned among the signs which precede them, may be sufficient
to show how free the air was from vapours at that time; and surely the fewer
there were above, the more may be supposed below. Ignes fatui were fre-
quently seen a few days before the earthquake; which may be a probable argu-
ment, at least, to show how full the earth was then of damps and exhalations;
since a stench, that tainted well water after an unusual manner, has on the
same account been generally reckoned amongst the signs of an earthquake, and
by which it may be predicted : for by this it was that Pherecydes is said to have
presaged the earthquake of Lacedemon ; and Helmont mentions another who
pretended to the same foresight, by tasting the water of a very deep well in the
castle of Lovain.

The motion of this earthquake was not of that sort which are termed pulses
or succussions; such as strike the ground at right angles with a violent shock,
or intermittent knocking, so as to raise the earth to a considerable height, or
force their way by a breach ; but it appears rather to be such a trembling motion,
as vibrates and shakes, without altering the position of the earth, and leaves
all things in the same posture in which it found them. For it shook the earth
with a tremulous and vibrating motion, whose reciprocations were repeated
with great quickness. The pulses were a little discontinued, and yet they came
so thick that I could not count them, though the whole earthquake continued
here scarcely more than 6 seconds of time; and when that ended, the restoring
motion, or settling of the building in which I was, seemed to be with a crash.

Now as tremulous and vibrating motions are proper to produce sounds, so
was this earthquake accompanied with a hollow murmuring sound, like distant
thunder; which sound kept time so exactly with the motion, and was so con-
formable to it in all respects, that it plainly appears there was the same cause
for both. To those that were within doors, it appeared to be more consider-
able, and as it were in the air above, occasioned chiefly by the shaking of the
building. But those that were abroad in the fields and open air, perceived,
with a gentle shaking, a hollow murmur towards the surface of the earth, not
unfitly compared to the groaning of some planks of elm, ash, or fir, when the
application of fire to the wood causes both a trembling and sound.

That there is considerable heat within the earth, is manifest, from the
experience of miners working in the deeper grooves, from those hot springs
which break out thence, and from fermentations occasioned by mineral spirits,
&c. Nor is it less commonly observed, that such heats and fermentations
within the earth are augmented by frosty weather ; when the steams being more

4 p 2

660 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

pent up, work more forcibly on each other. And that sounds and tremors
may be produced by such heat, though it work only on air, watery vapours,
or nitre, included in pores and cavities, appears by several experiments; as
that of filling glass bubbles half full with water and nitre, which being set to
the heat of the fire, will tremble with a sort of humming sound, and after
that break with a great noise and violence.

The extent of this earthquake was but 70 miles, or thereabouts; its largest
distance was from S. E. to N. W. the least from N. to S.; a very inconsider-
able space, if compared with that which others have extended, as for instance
the earthquake which happened in the south parts of Norway, April 24,
Anno 1657, 160 miles in length, and as much in breadth; and Kircher men-
tions one of 200 miles in length.

Another earthquake, far more considerable than the above, on all accounts,
happened Oct. 9, about 1 1 at night. It was noticed in Oxfordshire northwards
very much, and it spread over all the midland counties, and extended into
Derbyshire, in which, as in the coal counties, it was very violent.

An Account of the Eclipses or Ingresses of Jupiter's Satellites into his Shadow, and
such Emersions of them from it, as will be visible at the Observatory at Green-
wich in the last three Months of this Year l683. By J. F. Astron. Reg,
N°15I, p. 322.

I here send you an account of the eclipses or ingresses of Jupiter's satellites
into the shadow, and such emersions of them from it as will be visible at the
observatory in the last three months of this year; they are calculated from new
tables which I made this last summer, and I hope so exactly that the ingresses
of the first will seldom differ above 5 minutes from the time stated, the 3d but
little more : the eclipses of the 4th and 2d I dare not promise you shall agree
so well, for I find their motions evidently entangled with inequalities, which it
will require a long time and many more accurate observations to determine and
limit, than I have yet obtained: these eclipses have been esteemed, and certainly
are, a much better expedient for the discovery of the longitude than any yet
known, by reason that they happen frequently, and are easily observable with a
telescope of 12 feet, or for need with one of 8. These ingresses (and emersions
also if visible) from the time till the opposition of the 0 and If. happen truly
on the right hand, or in antecedence of the planet, but if they shall be observed
with telescopes of only two convex glasses, which invert the object, they appear
on the contrary or left side of him. If these find acceptance with our ingenious

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 60f

friends, the eclipses of the next year shall be imparted early enough to be pub-
lished in the December Transactions. I am, &c.*
Observatory, Sept. 22, l683.

j4n Account of the cutting out the Ccecum of a Bitch. By William Musgrave^-^-
LL. B. Student in Physic, and Felloiv of New-College ^ Oxon. N° 151,
p. 324.

The use of the caecum being still a desideratum in anatomy, I thought it
worth while to try, what light the cutting out of that part might afford us, in a
matter so obscure. In my first experiment of this kind (l683) my hopes were
soon defeated, by the death of the dog, two days after the operation ; but I was
more successful in a second attempt. April l683, I took a bitch of about a
year old, and opened the abdomen on the right side, in the regio iliaca, passing
my knife through the musculus obliquus ascendens, and by the side of the mus-
culus rectus; having found the caecum, I immediately put up the other guts
again into the abdomen, after which I separated the caecum from the ileum,
cutting the membrane which binds part of the former to the latter; then having
made a ligature on the artery which comes to the caecum, I made three or four
prick-seams through the sides of the caecum, at the farther end of it, where it is
continued to the rectum, and by thus sewing the sides together stopped the passage
of the faeces that way; after this I cut off the caecum about ^ of an inch from the
stitches, and sewed together the new-made lips, entering my needle always on
the inside and passing it through the outer membrane, that so the lips might the
better touch edgewise, and grow together. The wounds being sewed up, and
the bitch tied away, milk was set before her, of which she lapped a small quantity
the next morning, and by degrees recovered, so that in 3 weeks she seemed as
well as ever ; in a little time she grew fat and proud, and the last summer
brought a litter of whelps : in 4 months observation I could not perceive any
such alteration in her, as might reasonably be imputed to the loss of the caecum.

Sept. 19, 1633, I caused her to be hanged, and opened her a second time in
presence of Dr. Pitt, our professor of anatomy. We found a great part of the

* The calculations are omitted, as quite useless now.

+ "William Musgrave, a learned physician and antiquary, was a native of Charlton, in Somerset-
shire, and was educated at Oxford. He was one of the secretaries of the Royal Society, and supe».
intended the publication of the Philosophical Transactions, from N° 167 to N° 178 inclusive. He
afterwards removed to Exeter, where he continued to practise as a physician until the time of his
death, which happened in 1721, when he was about 64 years of age. He wrote two medical tracts
de Arthritide, and several other learned works, chiefly on antiquities 3 besides various papers inserted
in the Philosophical Transactions.

662 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1683.

omentum lying in a heap on the right side ; it had not recovered its natural
posture, since it was put up with the guts at the first opening ; the edges of the
wound were well grown together; in short we did not find any thing that
seemed to intimate the least want, or to supply the place of the caecum.

A short Account of three Conjunctions of the Planets Saturn and Jupiter , ob-
served at Dantzic, from the end of the Year l682 to May 28, N. S. of 1 683.
By M. Hevelius. Translated and abridged from the Latin. N° 151, p. 325.

On Oct. 26, N. S. l682, at lh.40m. in the morning, taking the situation
of Saturn and Jupiter with my tube and micrometer, when a remarkable fixed
star was near them, being, I think, that in the right shoulder of $| ; three of
Jupiter's satellites, if not the fourth also, being present. The distances taken
were, between Saturn and Jupiter 16' 44'', between Saturn and the star 38' I",
and between Jupiter and the star 27' 55^''; the star being then, according to our
catalogues, in 1 9" 2' g" of ^, with 20' 45^' north latitude. On Oct. 30, at 5h.
in the morning, the distance of Saturn and Jupiter was found 25' 5". Whence
it may be concluded, that the conjunction happened several days sooner than
Nov. 3, when it is given by the ephemeris and the calculation. This will be
still farther evinced by the following observations. For if the conjunction were
near, the distance of Saturn and Jupiter would daily decrease, whereas it conti-
nually increased. Thus, on Nov. 2, I observed their distance 35' 21^'; Nov. 3,
at ih. in the morning, it was 39' 9"; and Nov. 4, it was still greater.
, As to the other conjunction, which, according to the almanacs, ought to
happen by the retrogressions of those planets, on Jan. 26, this year l683, the
following are some of the principal observations.

An. 1683, Feb. Dist. b &:¥• Feb. 9, at 9h. receiving the planets in my

• ^' ^^* _ , „ tube I pursued them with my eye, and found

2 9 30 . . 2900 = 22 3 ^^^^ ^^^ conjunction fell in the night before, or

3 9 0 2500 =19 0 between the 8th and 9th of Feb. for now the

4 10 0 2300 = 17 29 distance was rather greater than on the 8th, as

^ ^ ^° ^^^ — ^^ ^? also on the 1 i th, at 9h. when the distance was

6 7 51 1850=14 6 / // , .. ,

^ g ^^t 1700=12 55 ^^^ parts, = 15 12% whereas it was only

8 6 10 1600 = 12 10 12' 10" on the 8th day. That the planets were

now past the conjunction, manifestly appeared also from the change in their
position with regard to the near stars. And the same will farther appear by

d. h. m. pts. the continual increase of distance observed on

^2 ^ ^ ^^^° ~ ^'^ ^" the following: days, as in the annexed tablet.

13 7 15 2550=19 24

14 9 0 2900 = 22 3

17 6 0. .... . 3750 = 28 30 ,

20 9 0 5250 = 30 12

rOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6(53

The following are also some of the principal observations made of the third

conjunction in the month of May following, the distances taken in parts of

May, 1683. Dist. Ty&'V- the micrometer as before. From which it is

d* *>• "^- P*s- manifest that, as the observed distance conti-

10 9 u::::::37^ = 28' 30" ""^"y decreased till May 18, and after that

jj Q JO 3450 = 26 13 continually increased, the conjunction of the

12 8 45 3050 = 23 10 planets took place on that day, and indeed, as

13 9 15 2800 = 21 17 appears from the observations of the 15th and

1* ^ ^^ 2^^^ = ^^ ^^ 20th days, at the hour of 10 in the morning;

15 9 30 2400 = 18 15 , • i "^ i- . ^i i r ,. ,

g Q gQ 2250 =17 6 which, according to the compilers ot the al-

17 9 40 2150 = i6 10 manacs, ought not to have happened till the

18 10 0 2100 = 15 58 26th, being 8 days later. And the same result

20 11 *5 2450 = 18 37 ^^s derived from many other observations con-

22 9 20! '. .... 2900 = 22 3 ^^^^^^ "" ^^^ following days, both of the dis-

23 g 5 3250 = 24 43 tanccs and positions of these planets with cer-

24 10 6 3600 = 27 22 tain stars; the distances being sometimes taken

25 9 30 4000 = 30 25 ^yrith the micrometer, and other times with the

26 11 0 4453 = 33 50 ^^^^^^^^

27 9 25 4900 = 37 15

28 9 56 5325 = 40 29

Occultations of some Fixed Stars by the Moon in 1 683, observed at Dantzic by M.
Hevelius. Abridged and translated from the Latin, N" 151, p. 331.

Anno l683, Feb. 11. N. S. at gh, when first the moon came in my eye, the
star Regulus was at some distance on the east. So that their conjunction, as
near as I could make by a rude estimate, took place about the rising of the
moon, at 5 or 6 o'clock. But whether the star had been really covered I could
not be quite certain.

Anno l683, April 2, N. S. I observed 2 occultations and a conjunction of
certain stars by the moon, as here follows :
Time by the watch.
9^ 53"™ 30*. . . . Beginning of the occultation of the small star A.
10 8 30. . . . Conjunction of the moon and- the little star C, distant from

the ([ 's lower horn 4'.
10 29 36 ... . Beginning of the occultation of the small star B.

10 52 50. ...End of the occultation of the star A.
IX 45 30 The altitude of Lyra 31° 44'

11 46 30 ... . The same again 31 55
11 47 50 ... . Repeated again 32 6

The small star A is not in Tycho's catalogue ; but in my new one it is called

664 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

the following under the bull's horn, of the 5th magnitude. At present its
place is 19° ll' 3b" of H, and 4^ 43' 44^' south latitude. The other star B is
19° 17' of n, and in 4° 47' south latitude. And the star C, which is scarcely
to be seen with the naked eye, is now in 19° 9' of n, and 5° 2' south latitude.

Historical Observations relating to Constantinople.* By the Rev. Tho. Smithy
D.D. and F.R.S. N° 152, p. 335.

An Abstract of a Letter from Mr. Anthony Leuwenhoeck, concerning Generation
by an Animalcule of the Male Seed. Also on Animals in the Seed of a Frog ;
with some other Observables in the Parts of a Frog. And on Digestion and
the Motion of the Blood in a Fever. -f- N** 152, p. 347.

Having been solicitous to examine the generation of frogs, J on account of
their young being like a worm, with a round thick body and a short tail ; I was
surprised to find that the male was not joined to the female in copulation, but
that he only sat upon her, and that he had no membrum masculum ; that at
the same time when the female cast her eggs or spawn, the male also dropped
his seed, which is to be spread under the eggs, in like manner as the seed of
fishes that want the membrum masculum is cast under the eggs of the female,
that the animalia in semine may conveniently impregnate the eggs. For I hold
it necessary that some one of the animals in semine should get into a certain
point § of the yolk of the egg, which point is only fit to receive it, and give it
the first nourishment, till such time as the egg comes to be sat on. But if no
one animal should find this point, then the egg is unfruitful ; and this may be
a reason why there are so many thousand more animals in semine masculo than
eggs in the female.

In several of my observations I had not found the animals taken out of the
testicles and vasa deferentia of frogs to be alive. But on the 1st of April, when
frogs were ready to spawn, I took some of the males sitting upon the females,

* So many accounts of this city have at different times been published by travellers and antiquaries
of our own and other nations, that it is deemed unnecessary to reprint this paper. Among the latest
and most accurate topographers of the capital of the Turkish dominions may be mentioned Mr.
Dallaway, formerly chaplain and physician of the British embassy to the Porte, and author of a De-
scription of Constantinople, ancient and modern, published in 1797-

f The observations on digestion and on the motion of the blood in a fever are omitted, as being
irreconcilable with subsequent physiological discoveries.

1 On this subject, the generation of frogs, three writers have distinguished themselves, viz. Swam-
merdam, Roesel, and Spallanzani.

$ By this point or speck he means the cicatricula. — Orig.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 605

and squeezed their hinder parts, that I might get the seed out of the vasa defe-
rentia; but the animalcules I then found moved but little, because the matter
they were in was full of salt particles, which made me judge it to be urine. I
then cut open the testicles, and there I found an innumerable company of ani-
malcules, swimming among a sort of ill-shaped particles; these continued alive
till the next day, though there was but a small quantity of liquor to contain
them. I judge the bodies of the animalcules to have been of the thickness of
T-gVg- part of a hair of my head; they are represented to the best of my skill in
fig. 12, pi. 18, where ABC is an animalcule as it lay in the watery matter, and
moved itself therein ; sometimes the head appeared to be thicker than at other
times, and often I could see the body only from A to B, by reason of the thin-
ness of the tail, BC; when the animal moved itself strongly, though the pro-
gress were but little, the motion towards the head was like that of a snake, and
the tail was cast into 3 or 4 bows. Fig. D is an animalcule lying dead, and
stretched out at length ; but in this posture I saw but few, for many that were
dead lay with the fore part of their body bent in, as in fig. E ; others made as
it were a half circle, and others had the fore part of their body bent, and moved
their hinder parts; these last I took to be ready to die. The number of ani-
malcules in all the seed was so great, that I judge there might be 10,000 of
them to one of the female's eggs. The same computation I formerly made of the
melt of a codfish; but it must not be thought that all the animals in the melt
of the codfish live together, but only such of them as are nearest the passage
they are to be cast out of, and which have more moisture about them ; the rest
of them being more remote in the body, and being encompassed with a thicker
matter, are not alive; for though some fishes, as the bream and trout, cast
their melt and spawn in 2 days time, yet codfishes are about a month in doing
it; in all which time the seed is successively ripened and perfected. So also are
frogs by what I have experienced, for the first animals I sought were dead, and
though I afterwards found live ones, yet those were dead that lay deepest in the
testicle.

It is well known, that when a cock has trodden a hen but once, many eggs
are made fruitful ; the reason that I give for it is, that many of the eggs in the
ovarium have each of them received an animalcule out of the male seed. This
animalcule, while the egg is sat upon, does not presently take the figure of a
chick, but grows into a disorderly bulk, wherein the heart is first plainly to be
discerned. Other foetuses have a different way of growth ; the louse has all its
parts, and is a breeder, while it is yet in the egg : the flea shows like globules
swimming in a watery substance, it afterwards becomes a worm, then a nym-
pha: the frog is a thick worm till it be of a considerable size: the human

VOL. II, 4 Q

666 PHrLOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1683.

foetus, though no larger than a green pea, yet is furnished with all its parts.
I have often endeavoured to discover the animal coming out of the male seed in
the egg of the hen, but have been unsuccessful, though some of the globules of
the egg were magnified to the size of common apples. This disappointment
has put me on the eggs of insects, as the flea and louse, which being very
small, may be so much the fitter for this discovery.

The first frog which I anatomised lay on the ground in my way, and seemed
so weak through cold that though I kicked it with my foot it would not leap
away ; this proved a female, in the guts of which I found worms like those in
children, of about the thickness of a hair of my head. The blood consisted of
flat oval particles, swimming in a clear liquor; these had no colour as they lay
singly, but when two of them lay upon each other, as here fig. 13, their colour
was stronger. A is an oval of blood partly covered with B a second oval of
blood; C is a third oval of blood, covering a part of ACB as at D, and cast-
ing a deeper colour, because 3 plates lie over each other; but there was another
small oval hard by, represented by E, which showed of a higher red than the 3
plates together. Many of these oval particles were very pleasant to look upon,
especially when the moisture wherein they swam, having also globules on the
surface as large as i of a blood globule, was evaporated ; for some had in the
middle a faint oval shade ; others appeared as if they were made of several ovals
of unequal sizes; others seemed to be set round with small globules; others had
no globules in the circumference, but several in the middle; these globules, I
believe, were at first swimming in the watery liquor under the ovals, though
now they cleave to them by accident.

On the plate whereon I laid the frog that I anatomized, I found several ani-
mals moving in a watery blood; they were about half as long and half as broad
as the oval particles, and about 50 of them might lie in the space of a sand.
These I had never seen in the pure blood, nor could I perceive them in the
water that came out on reaping the skin from the flesh, or on opening the belly,
or squeezing the head of the frog to make it lie quiet on the plate. At length
in the month of June I met with some frogs, whose excrement was full of an
innumerable company of living creatures, of different sorts and sizes, the
largest kind were shaped like fig. F, and of these I judged that 40 might be in
the space of a sand. The second sort had the shape of fig. G, which were but
few in number. The third sort was like our river eels, as fig. H, and these
were more in number than the first, but the whole excrement besides was so
full of living things, that it seemed all to move, and I guessed there was not
less than 1000 of the third sort in the space of a sand. From hence I con-
cluded that the animals found among the blood might come from my cutting a

VOL. XIII.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 667

gut. By the way I observed something of the damage that frogs may do to
fish-ponds, for I took out of some of their stomachs 8, 10 or more young
fishes.

I examined one of the muscles of the hinder leg of a frog, which consisted of
filaments, and those again of a great number of lesser filaments, which had
more rings in them than I had formerly seen in the muscular threads of an ox,
fly, gnat, flea, or louse. Such numerous rings I have since met with in the fila-
ments of the muscle of a lamb, taken from the rim of the belly, near the hinder
leg. From the indentings of these filaments I can not only satisfy myself how
the limbs come to stand bent, when the muscles are at rest, but also why we
can walk a longer time than stand still ; and why our arms when we walk do not
hang down at their full length stretched out by our sides, but move backwards
and forwards; for if the arms should still hang straight down, then would one
muscle be stretched too much, and another bent or drawn up too close; both
these things disagreeing with the natural constitution of the muscle.

jin Account of a Book entituled Relatione de Ritrovamento deW Uova di Chiocciokf

&c. N° 152, p. 356.

This anonymous author dedicates his treatise to Signor Malpighi. He first
takes notice of the opinion of the schools which taught two sorts of generation,
either by the seed of the animal, or spontaneous from corruption; and says, the
moderns reduce those two to one ; and having observed the uniformity of nature
in most of her works, have gone yet farther, and ventured to prove that the
general universal productive principle of all species is ex ovo. And this he endea-
vours to pursue in the works of the ancients as well as the modems, and out of
scripture as well as philosophy; but one passage is remarkable out of Hippocrates,
in his book de Natura Pueri ; where, relating the case of a young woman, who in
dancing miscarried of a foetus of 6 days old, Hippocrates says, it was like a raw
egg the shell being first taken off; and therefore in the end concludes that the
nature of the oviparous differs not from that of man.

But still there seemed to be much difiiculty in the production of insects, till
Signor Redi, by many incontestible experiments, proved them to be generated
out of eggs ; and by that convicted of error the natural histories of Aristotle and
^lian, showing the necessity of a new and more accurate one, which he owns
is with much glory pursued by the Royal Society of London, as well as that of
Paris and Florence ; and particularly makes very honourable mention of Mr.
Lister, for his history of spiders and snails; and of Mr. Ray, for being the first
discoverer of their being all hermaphrodites, or androgynous, as he terms it.

After this, he says, the thing seemed out of dispute, when a book came out

4a2

668 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

called the Recreation of the Eye and Mind in Observations upon Snails, by
Father Philippo Bonani, a Jesuit; it being a pretty large volume containing the
natural history of all the snail kind, where he not only doubts of their pro-
duction by eggs, but also endeavours to overthrow most of Signer Redi's experi-
ments that tended to establish the principle of an univocous generation, to
which he prefers the old principle of corruption for the insects.

While he was reading this book, he says, he chanced in taking up some
flowers, about the J 0th of July, to observe by a border * a cluster of little eggs,
which had nothing in them but the white, like the white of an egg ; but on a
more diligent search he found another cluster, as large as would fill the palm of
his hand, out of which came young snails, some having but just broke the
shell, others being half out, and others quite out with the testa of the egg
fastened to the tail of the animal. He says the eggs were no larger than pepper
corns, and mostly white, but those which were ready to break, tending to
yellow ; they were fastened in a lump by a kind of glutinous water.

Tajapi, sen Aper Mexicanus Moschiferus, or the Anatomy of the Mexican Musk-
Hogj-f ^c. By Dr. Edivard Tyson, F. R. S. iSF*' 153, p. 350.

The shape of this animal is such that it may be easily reduced to the swine
kind; though it was much less than our usual hogs; for, from the end of the
body, where the tail should be, to the top of the head between the ears, was 1
feet 2 inches; from thence to the end of the nose 11 inches ; the compass of
the body 2 feet ; the compass of the neck l6 inches; of the head in the largest
place 18 inches; and of the snout 12 inches.

* The common or garden snail is said to deposit its eggs during the summer months, almost as
often as once a fortnight : they are laid in shady places, and generally a little below the surface of
the mould. From these the young are hatched and completely formed, and with the shells on their
backs.

f The animal here described is the Sm Tajafu of Linnaeus, or Pecari. It is the only species of hog
found in the New World, and is considerably smaller than the common hog, and of a more compact
form : it is covered on the upper parts with very strong dark brown or blackish bristles, each marked
by several yellowish white rings, so tliat the colour of the whole appears mottled, and round the neck
is commonly a white collar. The head is large j the snout long; the ears short and upright; the
belly nearly naked : there is no tail, and on the lower part of the back is a glandular orifice, sur-
rounded by strong bristles in a somewhat radiated direction: from the orifice exsudes a strong-
scented fluid, and this part has been vulgarly supposed to be the navel of the animal : the tusks m
this species of hog are not very large.

Dr. Tyson in his anatomical description falls, according to Buffon, into a very material error, viz
in aflSrming that the animal has three stomachs, whereas it has in reality but one Btomach, parted a
little, like that of the tapir, by two strictures or contractions.

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 66g

What is most particular in this hog, and makes the greatest difference in it
from any other animal I know of in the world, is the teat or navel, or foramen
rather, on the hindpart of the back. All who mention this animal, consider
this as a thing so extraordinary and uncommon, that their amazement has so
far clouded their reason, as to betray them into most extravagant conjectures
and opinions concerning it. Not any one that 1 have met with affording the
least glimmering of a probable truth.

These animals are found in Panama, and New Spain; in Nicaragua, in Terra
Firma, and in Brasil. They are usually met with in the mountains and woods;
and go in herds together. They feed on roots, acorns, and fruits ; but, as the
greatest delicacy, they hunt for all sorts of poisonous serpents and toads; and
having caught them, holding them with their fore feet, with a great deal of
dexterity, with their teeth they strip off their skin from the head to the tail,
then greedily devour them. And it is said they eat the root or bark of a certain
tree, as an antidote against the poison; by which means they are well fed, and
grow large. When they are tamed, they will feed on any thing. But naturally
they are very fierce. f

Oviedus remarks that the swine the Spaniards left on the islands of St.
Domingo, St. Joannes, and Jamaica, multiplied, and increased. But those in
Terra Firma durst never go in the woods; but were destroyed by the lions,
tigers, and lupi cervarii. Yet in these woods, there are great herds of these
tajaqus, that can make their party good against the fiercest beasts. If any of
them be wounded, he presently gets to his assistance a great number of his
kind; and never desists till he has revenged the injury or is slain. They are
always at enmity with the tigers. And there is often found the body of a tiger,
and many of these tajaqus slain together. If they spy a man, they will fiercely
set on him ; and his best escape is to g^t up a tree, which they will most furiously
assault with their teeth ; nor will they easily leave him till forced by hunger, or
slain by him, by clubs, darts, or a gun. It is said, it is usual to take them,
viz. by a man's showing himself to them, whom it is known they will presently
pursue. If they are hunted, the dogs are often torn in pieces by them. Their
flesh is esteemed very good, and much desired by the inhabitants, though they
have but little fat.

To come now to the anatomy ; having divided the muscles of the belly, what
was most remarkable was the structure of the stomachs, of which it had three.
Into the middlemost was inserted the oesophagus or gullet; which we may
therefore call the first ventricle or stomach. From this, on one side was a large
passage into the second; which pouching out had its two ends winding like a

670 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

horn ; and on the other side of the first or middle stomach, was a free open
passage into the third, which emptied itself into the duodenum.

The first stomach was lined within with a white thick hard membrane, almost
like the inward pellicle of the gizzard of fowls ; with which none of the other
stomachs were endowed ; for the inward surface of the second was smooth and
soft, its membranes thin, and more inclining to the common make of that of
carnivorous animals. The third somewhat like this, but thicker, and rimpled
within, with large plicae or folds.

Dr. Grew observes, that in the common hog, against the pylorus stands a
round caruncle, as large as a small filberd kernel, like a stopple to the pylorus ;
a part he thinks peculiar to this animal. This in our Mexico hog I did not ob-
serve. His conjecture of the use of it is probable enough : it being so voracious
an animal, for the preventing a too sudden and copious irruption of the aliment;
which is sufficiently provided for in our subject by the great straitening of the
pylorus here, and the great ascent it must make before it can go out : which
may be the reason too of nature's making these several cells, or partitions, for
the better digestion and maceration of the food; for this animal being frugivo-
rous, graminivorus, and carnivorous too, the stomachs are so contrived, as that
the first, by its inward pellicle somewhat resembles that of birds, which are
carpophagous ; so the others, those of quadrupeds.

The small guts, which in other animals being fastened to a large mesentery,
usually hang down lower, were here closer gathered, by the shortness of this
membrane, to the spine; and the colon, which in others is more suspended,
here by its peculiar structure lies loose, and falls down. For the duodenum
arising from the pylorus with a short turn, that and the other small intestines
made abundance of convolutions and windings ; and although the mesentery-
was but very short from the spine, and its circumference seemingly but very
small, yet in this compass it contained 27 feet of these intestines, for so much
they measured from the pylorus to the colon. The colon was not fastened to
the periphery or rim of the mesentery as usual; but, arising from the centre or
middle, made a spiral line, its end hanging loose, and its turnings were closely
united to each other by membranes. This colon was very large in comparison
of the other guts, and measured Q feet in length. It had a short caecum, but
pretty wide, and filled with faeces. What Dr. Grew observes, viz. that it is
peculiar to the caecum of a hog, and that of a horse, to have the same structure
with the colon, is true here also. And it may be reckoned as an appendix of
the colon. In a hog, Dr. Grew makes 7 intestines. The same differences I
might perhaps have met with here; but I was prevented by the little leisure I

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, 67I

had of being so nice in this, as some other parts; and it being kept so long be-
fore I had it for dissection, it was rendered less fit for such inquiries. Falco-
burgius says the length of all the guts were 34 geometrical feet; ours measured
more. The structure of the colon here seems extraordinary. Some such gut
I find in a goat, making several spiral windings in the middle of the mesentery;
but then taking a compass round, near the verge, to which are fastened the
lesser intestines, at last it passes into the rectum. So in a woodcock there is
such a spiral gut. But in our tajaqu not only the stomach, gut, and mesentery
were extraordinary, but the mesaraic vessels too ; for in men and dogs, &c.
making the segment of a circle near the middle, they then send out several
large branches towards the intestines ; which as they approach them by their
mutual inosculation, forming several small arches, from whence issue numerous
lesser branches to the guts themselves ; but here, in our hog, we observed a
large vein and artery, running a small and equal distance from the intestines;
and from them arising an infinite number of lesser, but straight vessels; which
going to the guts so regularly, and in so great numbers, afforded a very pleasant
sight.

The spleen was about 10 inches long; almost of the same breadth through-
out; and in the middle was one inch and half broad ; it was of a lead colour, a
little speckled or marbled. The liver consisted of 4 large lobes ; and was of a
dark red colour. It appeared plainly glandulous, and had no vesica fellea;
which is the more remarkable, since our common swine have a large cystis
fellea. But it had a ductus bilarius, which went from the liver to the duodenum
as usual. The pancreas was about 5 or 6 inches long, and consisted of several
glaiids.

The testes were 2 inches long; larger at the upper end, then the lower, and
in the middle about an inch broad; they were placed in the scrotum; their
colour white; their structure close; so that the vessels which composed them,
did not so plainly appear as in an ordinary boar: yet no doubt their whole com-
pages was vascular, though here closer wrought together and united. Vauclius
Dathirius Bonglarus'''' discovered this vascular structure of the testis of a boar, as
also of a man about 10 years before Reg. de Graaf published his book, De Or-
ganis Virorum Generat. inservientib. and has given good figures of the same.
Though the latter has given a much larger and further account of this subject
since. Their use is no doubt to prepare the semen; which is conveyed thence
by the vasa deferentia to the vesiculae seminales. These deferentia arise near
the lower part of the testes; and are so inserted that they might almost equally
empty themselves, either into the vesicae seminales or urethra.

♦ Vid. Philosophical Transactions, N° 42,

072 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

The vesiculae seminales were 14- inch long; in some places -j-, in others half
an inch broad. Though called vesiculae, yet here they appeared more glandu-
lous ; nor was their cavity very large. The common orifices to them and the
vasa deferentia made a rising in the inside of the urethra, which de Graaf calls
caput gallinaginis ; in men and other animals there is a better resemblance and
show for the name. In those too, at this place, is seated that glandulous body
called the prostatae. But the vesiculae here being so glandulous, possibly they
may perform their office ; unless we should ascribe their use to those two
glands, which lay on each side the urethra, and emptied themselves with two
orifices, near the root of the penis. These glands were cylindrical, of a whitish
yellow colour, an inch and half long, and 4^ of an inch in diameter. Theit
substance was close, like that of the testes, and no perceptible cavity within ;
and they lay along the outside of the urethra, reaching from the musculi
erectores penis to the glandulous vesiculae before described. The penis in our
taja(5u was a long slender body, composed of several muscles, whereof two
were very long. The vesica urinaria, or bladder of urine, was rounder than in
8ome other animals ; where usually it is more oblong. The ureters were in-
serted at the neck of the bladder.

In the thorax, the structure of the aorta was uncommon. For as it descends
along the spine in all other animals, its trunk almost of an equal breadth, only
a little tapering downwards; here, between the heart and its branchings
into the iliac arteries, we found three large aneurisms or tumours. The largest
was that nearest the heart, which, after a small contraction, emptied itself into
the second ; and this, though less than the first, was yet much larger than the
third, which was near the division of the aorta into the rami iliaci. Two of
these swellings I opened ; and found within several unequal cells or hollows ;
and the membranes here were altogether as thick as where the artery was not
extended.

These extensions of an artery are called aneurismata; as those of a vein, va-
rices ; and are reputed to happen, when the inward coat of the artery is burst,
and so gives way for the extension of the outward ; and commonly they have
been occasioned by pricking an artery, instead of a vein. But what should be
the cause of it, in our subject, is most difficult to assign. For, it being the
only one of the kind I have dissected; I know not how far it may be preterna-
tural, or to be met with again. If preternatural, it is the more remarkable
here, because this is the strongest and thickest artery in the whole body. If
natural, there is nothing I can at present better parallel it with, than those pro-
tuberant swellings in the aorta of silkworms, and other such insects, which
Malpighi takes for so many several hearts. Which must be allowed him, un-

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6/3

less we deny them to have any heart at all. For in a leech, there are two large
arteries, without any of these swellings ; so we must either confess them to bq
two hearts, or not to have any ; for there is no part I have yet observed in
them, that I can give that name to, besides ; nor to these without some
allowance.

We come now to what seems most peculiar to this animal, to be met
with in none besides, viz. the glandulous body seated on the ridge of the
back, just over the hinder legs, but so covered by the long bristles there, that
it was not to be observed but by opening them with the hand, and then appears
a space almost bare, only beset with a few shorter and finer hairs; and in the
middle of it is the protuberant orifice of the gland, by which it discharges the
liquor which is separated by it within. This orifice has its lips a little reflected,
and protuberant above the surface of the skin. It would easily admit of a large
probe, which could be turned into several parts of the gland. On a gentle
pressure with the finger, there was observed a small quantity of a white yel-
lowish juice, and some part of it of a little darker colour, which yielded a very
pleasant and agreeable scent, much like that of musk or civet. The gland
itself was seated between the skin and some part of the panniculus carnosus.
For in the middle of that part or surface which regarded the back, it was bare,
and not covered with that muscle, only the edges inclosed within it; so that in
taking off the skin, the gland too could easily come away with it; however,
this muscle may be assisting to it, by its contractions, in pressing out its liquor,
as the sphincter muscle is to those scent bags placed at the extremity of the
rectum of other animals. The gland was conglomerated, or made up of several
minute and small white glandules. It had no considerable cystis or cavity with-
in ; but like the pancreas, or salival glands, it had abundance of excretory ducts ;
which terminating at last in one, discharged its separated juice by the common
orifice. This orifice having something of a resemblance to a navel, has imposed
upon almost all who have described the animal, as to believe it an umbilicus;
and others, who have deviated from this sentiment, have delivered quite as
absurd and extravagant conjectures about it.

But my opinion concerning it is, there is nothing I can compare this gland
with more than those scent-bags or glands in other animals. For though the
whole body may be perspirable, and so diffuse a smell, yet that peculiar fioetor,
which is observed in all strong-scented animals, I have hitherto constantly found
more remarkably collected into one part ; the particles, which cause it, being
separated from the mass of blood by peculiar glands, which either quickly dis-
charge it wholly out of the body, as in some, or transmit the separated juice

VOL. II. 4 R

674 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 683.

into bags, or bladders, where it remains some longer time, as in many other
animals.

This I first noticed in polecats, viz. that just at the extremity of the rectum
are placed two bags, filled with a thick and whitish liquor, of a very strong and
offensive scent. The same I have observed in abundance of other animals ; as
in all the polecat-kind, in our common cats, in a lion, in dogs, in a fox, &c.
Those bags in the civet-cat, or hyaena odorifera, are nothing but the same.
As are likewise those of a musk-quash, mentioned by Josselin in his History of
the Rarities of New-England ; for they are not the testicles of that animal; for
having seen the skins here in town, and those musk cods, I find them to be
only the scent-bags. So the castoreum we have in the shops is not the stones
of a beaver, as formerly reputed, but altogether of the same nature with our
scent-bags. And in most species of animals there may be observed something
the same or analogous to it, which give them their peculiar foetors or smells.
Thus I have observed in reptiles, as the rattle-snake, in vipers, in the common
snake, &c. two long bags in the tail, which discharges their foetid liquor near
the verge of the rectum. But in all animals these bags or glands are not
seated here ; but in some, in different parts of the body. In fowls and birds
in the rumps are two glands, which have their pipes or excretory ducts arising
on the top of it, above the surface of the skin, which discharge a foetid liquor.
These glands are largest in geese and the duck kind, which use the water. In
Turkeys the rump is less glandulous, but they have a larger cystis within.
In the ostrich the gland lies higher on the back, where it makes two bunches ;
and under the skin is a cystis filled with a concreted yellowish juice, which
is near the place where the gland in the Mexican hog is seated. Again, the
musk deer has its musk-bag on the belly, near the navel.

To give a short account of the skeleton; the cranium seemed entire, with-
out sutures. From the nose, to the end of the pole, 84- inches. Here the
cranium grew very narrow ; and then spread itself again triangularwise, and
made a large hollow behind ; and where were inserted strong muscles, and
the ligament from the back; by which means the head is kept so straight
up, that when alive, he seemed to have but a very short (if any) neck at all.
The porus auditorius, or passage to the ear, was something remarkable, being
placed near the pole. In the upper jaw in the front were four teeth, or in-
cisores. A little farther was placed a large flat tusk, sharp-edged, and standing
outwards ; and beyond that, on each side, 6 double teeth, or molares. The
lower jaw was 6^ inches long ; 14- broad at the first double tooth, of which
there were 6 on each side. The bone of the lower jaw here, from the dentes

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 675

molares to the incisores, seemed spongy and carious; and the tusks in this
jaw were rotted out; as were one or two of the incisores, which in all were
about four.

There were seven vertebrae of the neck ; which measured in length 44- inches.
The first, or atlas, had two broad transverse processes, but no spine. The
second had a broad large spine. The third, fourth, fifth, had no spines; the
sixth and seventh had large acute ones. There were 19 vertebrae of the back;
the spines of the first, second, and third, were about 3 inches long; but they
gradually decreased, as they approached the tail. The first vertebra of the os
coccygis was 1 inches long ; and though it seemed to be several, yet it was
but one bone. There were but 6 vertebrae more, which ran no farther than
the extent of the os ischii. There were 14 ribs on each side. The os sterni
jetted out about an inch beyond the setting on of the first ribs. The scapula
was 5 inches long; the os femoris of the fore foot b\\ the os tibiae of the
fore foot about the same length in the whole: but from the juncture with the
OS femoris to the os metatarsi it was but 4 inches; for from the juncture
with the thigh-bone it jetted out further. The bones of the tarsus were 5 :
of the metatarsus 3, about 1 inches long. The bones of the digiti 9 ; there
being 3 to each claw, and 3 claws on each fore foot. The os femoris of the
hinder foot was almost 6 inches long ; and near its juncture with the os tibise
it had a small bone, like the patella in the knee of a man. In the leg were
two bones, the focile majus and minus, 54- inches long. But this part in the
fore leg was only a single bone; though in a dog, a monkey, and some other
animals, there are two bones in the fore-leg likewise. The os calcis was almost
2 inches long; and there were 4 other bones of the tarsus or instep. The me-
tatarsus or foot was composed of 4 bones, but the two inward much the largest;
being 1\ long; there were four digiti, in each three bones; whereof the last
was covered with a nail.

The Explanation of the Figures,

Plate XXII. Fig. 1, represents the natural shape of this Mexican hog, and
the line, a, points to the scent gland, on the hinder part of the back.

Fig. 2, gives a view of the skeleton, a the fore teeth or incisores; b the
tusk ; cc the grinders, or molares ; d the lower jaw; e that part of the lower
jaw which was carious ; f the cranium ; g the orbit of the eye^ h the porus
auditorius, or passage to the ear ; i the triangular expansion of the cranium
backwards ; k the vertebrae of the neck ; 1 1 the vertebrae of the back and loins ;
m the vertebrae of the os coccygis; n n the ribs ; o the protuberant bone of the
sternum ; p the scapula, or shoulder blade ; q the os ischii ; r r the os femoris,

4 b2

676 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

or thigh bones ; s the patella of the hinder legs; t the tibia of the fore leg;
V a large protuberancy of the tibia; w the tibia or focile majus of the hinder
leg ; X the fibula or focile minus of the hinder leg; y y the tarsus, or instep on
both legs ; z the calx, or heel in the hinder leg; ocxa. the bones of the meta-
tarsus or foot; e e e the digiti or toes ; yyy the nails.

Fig. 3, shows the orifice of the scent gland, as it naturally appeared on the
outside of the skin of the back ; a little space round this orifice was almost
bare of bristles.

Fig. 4, the scent gland itself; which was conglomerated, or made up of
abundance of lesser glandules.

Fig. 5, most of the viscera in the belly; a the oesophagus, or gullet ; b the
first ventricle, or stomach; c the second ventricle, or stomach; dd the cornua,
or horns of the second stomach; e the third stomach ; f the pylorus ; ggg the
intestina tenuia, or small guts ; hhh the colon ; i the caecum ; k the rectum ;
1 the mesentery ; m m the meseraic vessels ; n the pancreas ; o the spleen ;
p the liver; q the duct of the gall from the liver to the duodenum.

Fig. 6, represents the stomach opened ; a the oesophagus or gullet ; b the
entrance of the gullet into the first stomach ; c c the inside of the first stomach,
which was invested with a strong thick white pellicle or membrane ; dd the
second stomach; ee the third stomach, in which were remarkable several plicae
or folds ; f the pylorus.

Fig. 7, represents the outside of the three stomachs, more in their natural
situation ; a the gullet ; b the first stomach ; c the second stomach ; d the third
stomach; e the pylorus; f ff the blood vessels.

Fig. 8, represents the genital parts, and the bladder; a the bladder of urine;
b the neck of the bladder ; cc the ureters; dd the testes; ee the vasa deferen-
tia ; f f the vesiculae seminales, which here were glandulous ; g the caput galli-
naginis, where the vesiculae seminales, and vasa deferentia, empty themselves
into the urethra; hh two glandulous bodies, which possibly may be reckoned
the prostatae; i the orifices by which these glandulous bodies empty themselves
into the urethra; k the urethra opened; 1 the penis; mm two muscles belong-
ing to the penis; nn other muscles assisting to the same.

Fig. 9, shows the heart, and the aneurismata of the arteria aorta, or great
artery; a the heart; bb the ascending branches of the great artery; c the
descending trunk of the great artery ; d the first aneurisma, or distinction of
the great artery opened to show its several cells within ; e a straitening of the
artery again ; f the second aneurisma opened likewise ; g the third or smallest
aneurisma ; hh the iliac branches of the great artery.

VOL. Xlir.'J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. Q^J

Recherches Curieuses, &c. i, e. Curious Researches of Antiquity, contained in
divers Dissertations concerning Medals, Bas-reliefs, Statues, Mosaic JVorhs,
and Inscriptions of the Ancients: enriched ivith a great Number of Brass Cuts,
By Mons. Spon, Dr, of Physic, at Lyons, l683, in Ato. N° 153, p. 386.

The subjects described In this work, consisting of various pieces of antiqui-
ties, as bucklers, shields, monuments, statues, rings, medals, coins, pictures,
urns, inscriptions, &c. are too numerous to be particularized.

The Antiquity of the Indian Numeral Characters. By Dr. IVallis. N° 154,

p. 399.

Sir, I send you a drawing of an ancient mantle-tree, which was lately sliowed
me, at Helmdon, in Northamptonshire, belonging to the parlour chimney of
the parsonage house. What makes it very remarkable, is the date, expressing
I suppose the time when it was first made, described partly in numerals. A°
Do* M° 133. But both the letters and the figures are of an antique form,
agreeing well enough with that age.

That the numeral figures now in frequent use, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, with
the manner of computation by them, and the names of algorism appropriated
to that way of computation, came to us from the Arabs, but somewhat altered as
to the shape of the figures in succeeding ages, as are also the Latin letters, which
were originally derived from those of the Greek, and to them from the Indians,
who are supposed to have been the first inventors of such figures, and the way
of computation by them, is generally agreed I think by all who have made these
afl^airs their study. But it is not so generally agreed, of what antiquity the
use of them has been in Europe.

Vossius, in his Treatise De Scientis Mathematicis, says, they have not been
of use in Europe for much more than 350 years; and thinks they were not in-
troduced till about the year of our Lord 1300, or at the farthest later than the
year 1250.

And P. Mabillion, in his Treatise lately printed De Re Diplomatics, tells us,
that he has not found them any where used sooner than the 14th century:
which is yet somewhat later than the time assigned by Vossius.

What time is assigned by others I cannot say. But for my part, I think their
use in these parts to have been much older. As old at least as the year 1050;
if not so frequently in ordinary affairs, yet at least in mathematical things, and
especially in astronomical tables.

They came to us, I suppose, first from the moors in Spain, from whom we

678 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

had our Arabic learning, especially the astronomical. And it must needs be as
ancient as any Latin translations are out of Arabic, of astronomical tables and
other astronomical treatises. Which could neither be well understood in
Arabic, nor translated into Latin, without the use of such figures; which
occur frequently in those authors. But I do not remember, that I have
any where seen any monument of them more ancient than the mantle-tree
here described.

The sides of the chimney, by which the mantle-tree is supported, are of
stone: but the mantle-tree itself is of wood, oak, or some other hard wood,
which by being kept always dry and smoked, is become as durable. And it may
yet (to all appearance) continue for some hundred years more. It is all over
as black as ink, by age and smoke. The length of it, AB, (fig. 10, pi. 22,)
is 5 feet 9 inches: its breadth or depth, at the ends, as AC, BD, is one foot,
or rather 11 4- inches; but at the middle, as EF, somewhat less; being some-
what hollowed, archwise. It is carved, from end to end. The lower part of
it is abated, as in the mouldings of other chimnies. On the front of the upper
part, is in the one half, the sculpture of a dragon's head, and wings. In the
other half, there is here only shown in the fig. on three squares parted from
each other by a deep furrow or channel, the date as it is here expressed;
and, on a fourth, a flower; on a fifth, the two letters W. R. with an escutcheon,
representing I suppose the name of him to whom it then belonged. And then,
in two lesser squares as the space would permit, one over the other, flowers, as
before. The letters and figures, on their several squares, are not engraved or
cut in, but prominent, by way of bas-relief, the wood being abated round about
them. The o, over the A, is a round o; but that over the M, is a square O;
and part of this 0 has been lately pared off" with a knife, by somebody it
seems who had a mind to see of what colour the wood is underneath; and it
appears there not so black as the rest, but fuscous of a dusky smoke colour.
And this, as I remember, is all the defacing that appears in the whole
mantle-tree.

Hence it appears, that the use of such figures here in England, not only in
astronomical tables, and other like pieces of learning, but even on ordinary
occasions, is at least as old as the year 1133 ; which was the 33d year of king
Henry the first. And I judge it to have been yet somewhat older, because
the shape of the figures, though not come just to the shape which we now
use, was even then considerably varied from the shape of the Arabic figures;
which argues they had then been for some time in use; such change of shape
in figures and letters coming on gradually with time.

The foot of the figure 3 being turned backward, makes it more resemble the

VOL. XIII.] fHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 67Q

Arabic figure, which is much the same with this, save what here stands upright,
there lies flat; and I find it so constantly in many of the ancient manuscripts,
before the use of printing.

Nor need it move any scruple at all, that part of the number is expressed by
the numeral letter M, or the word millesimo, of which M° is but a contrac-
tion, while the rest is expressed in numeral figures. For the like often occurs
in old manuscripts ; and sometimes even at this day. And it rather favours the
simplicity of that age, not very nice in such things, especially among me-
chanics, than any design of imposture.*

On the Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites for the Year following, l684, with a
Catalogue of them, and Informations concerning its Use, By Mr, Flamsteed.
N° 154, p. 4D4.

It has been my custom for years past to make quarterly a small ephemeris of
the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites visible with us, that none of them might
escape me unobserved when the weather permitted; having by this means ob-
tained a good stock of observations of them of my own, besides what I had
collected from the works of Gallileo, Hodierna, Borelli, the papers of Mr.
Rooke, late professor of Geometry, at Gresham College, and the communica-
tions of my friends Mons. Cassini and Mr. Townley, I found myself well fur-
nished for the restitution of their motions, which I attempted last summer,
and accomplished with such success, that having seen only 2 of the predicted
eclipses of the first satellites,^ I find neither of them differ above 2 minutes
from my calculations. I have also observed one of the third, not above 3
minutes faulty, and another of the second erring but 2; which makes me hope
the inequality I suspected in this last, will not be found so great as 1 feared

♦ This subject is treated at greater length by the doctor in his Algebra, cap. 4>, p. 17 j as also by
several other writers; some of them agreeing in Dr. Wallis's opinion, while others oppose it. Thus,
among others, we shall find in the Philosophical Transactions, No, 439, An. 1735, a dissertation by
Dr. John Ward, against the antiquity of the Arabian numerals, and particularly against the above
date on the Helmdon mantle - piece j which he conjectures was intended for 1233, rather than 1133:
and in the Archaeologia, vol. 13, is a learned paper, (Art. 10,) by the Rev. Samuel Denne, in which
he contends for a much later introduction of those numerals, at least in common use as well as in
books of science. But, on the other hand, in the Gent. Mag. an. 1800, vol. 70, a writer, (Mr.
R. Churton) has given a fac-simile of the above inscription, as large as the letters themselves,
taken from the carving itself by a kind of impression on paper; showing that the fig. 1, for the
hundred in Dr. Wallis's number, is the true and exact shape of the character; and that it has no.
approach to the form of the 2, as conjectured by Dr. Ward. On the whole, the truth seems to be,
that those Indian numerals may have been used so nearly in this country, as above, on some particu-
lar occasions, though not brought into common use till a century or two later.

680 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

it might be: after I had finished the tables of their mean motions, I set
myself to calculate others for finding the true times of their return to the
heliocentric conjunction of % in all places of his orbit, with some other which

1 foresaw requisite for the easy calculation of their eclipses: having this in
readiness, and being encouraged by the late success of my endeavours, I re-
solved to calculate all the eclipses of the following year l684, and to impart
them to the public in the tracts, for the use of foreigners as well as ourselves; for,
if these eclipses be observed, it will certainly show the difference of meridians
between them and us. And I must confess it is some part of my design, to
make our more knowing seamen ashamed of that refuge of ignorance, their
idle and impudent assertion that the longitude is not to be found, by offering
them an expedient that will assuredly afford it. Such of them as pretend to a
greater talent of skill than others, will acknowledge that it might be attained
by observations of the moon, if we had tables that would answer her nootions
exactly ; but after 2000 years experience, we find the best tables extant erring
sometimes 12 minutes or more in her apparent place, which would cause a
fault of half an hour, or 7-I- degrees in the longitude, deduced by comparing
her place in the heavens with that given by the tables. I undervalue not this
method, for I have made it my business, and have succeeded in it, to get a
large stock of good lunar observations, for the correction of her theory, and as
a ground work for better tables ; but the examination will be a work of a long
time ; and if we should afterwards attain what we seek, the calculation will be
so perplexed and tedious, that it will be found much more inconvenient and
difficult than that I propose by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites,
which however at present I must prefer.

For I am persuaded that the eclipses of the first will scarcely be found above
4 minutes differing from my calculation in the catalogue, nor those of the third
above twice as much ; now an error of 4 minutes cannot cause a fault of more
than 1 degree in the longitude, collected by comparing an observed ingress of
the first satellite into l/'s shadow, or emersion from it, with the time given in
the catalogue; and I hope it will scarcely ever be found to err so much. But if
the same eclipse may be observed in 2 distant places at the same time, or com-
pared with an observation of the same satellite made within a week elsewhere,
the difference of meridians will be had something better than by comparing

2 observations of the same phasis of a lunar eclipse made in distant places.
For whereas it is somewhat difficult, by reason of the penumbra, to deter-
mine the true time of the application of either of the moon's limbs to the sha-
dow, the satellites eclipses, especially those of the first, are almost momentary.
And as there can seldom be 4 eclipses of the moon visible the same year, those

VOL. Xril.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 681

of the satellites happen so frequently, that there are more of them visible in 1
year than there are days, though the planet % lie hid under the sun's rays
every year a whole month together.

I know our navigators will object to this method, that it is difficult to prac-
tise at sea, because long telescopes are required, which the motion of the ship
will not permit them to manage aboard ; that it is hard to distinguish one sa-
tellite from another, and that tables or other contrivances for showing their
mutual positions are here wanting: to which I answer; That if it be not prac-
ticable at sea, they cannot deny but it is at land; that the true longitude of re-
mote coasts from us is the first thing desired for the correction of their charts;
let them attempt these first, and I doubt not but the success will encourage
them so much, that they will readily find means to put it in practice at sea.*
That the French have used this method successfully both in Denmark and their
own country; that a telescope of 14 feet long at most, or for need one of 8 feet,
with broad eye-glasses, will be sufficient for this purpose ; that the difficulty
cannot be known till it be tried, and that use renders many things easy which
our first thoughts conceived impracticable.

If it be required to know whether any one of those eclipses invisible to us
be visible in any other given place, convert the difference of meridians between
it and London into time. And if the place lie to the east of London, add it
to, if to the west, subtract it from the time of the appearance at London, the
sum or difference accordingly will be the true time of the eclipse under that
meridian, at which, if % be above the horizon, and the sun beneath it, the
eclipse is there visible, otherwise not. Or by the help of the ephemerides of
the planet's places, and a terrestrial globe, the space on it in which any of these
eclipses will be visible may be found thus : first seek the true places of the sun
and Jupiter, with his latitude, in the ephemerides, whereby you may find their
declinations and right ascensions, either by the common tables or the globe it-
self exactly enough for this method. Bring London on the globe to the meri-
dian, and detaining it there, note what degree of the equator is cut by it; from
this subtract the time of the eclipse after noon, converted into degrees and
minutes, the remainder shows the longitude of that meridian on the earth,
where it is then noon when the satellite is eclipsed, which I therefore call the
meridional longitude of the eclipse. Bring this meridional longitude under the
meridian, and elevate the nearer pole to the sun as much as is his declination,
keep the globe in this position, and if If. be in consequence of the sun, draw
a line on the globe along the eastern horizon, it passes over all those places
where the sun is setting at that time, but if If be in antecedence of the sun,

* This, however, has never yet been done.
VOL. II. 4 S

682 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16S3,

draw the said line on the globe by the western edge of the horizon, it passes
over all those places where the sun is then rising.

Jupiter being in consequence of the sun, add the difference of his and the
sun's right ascensions to the said meridional longitude, bring the degree of the
equator answering to their sum under the meridian ; raise the pole next Jupiter
equal to his declination^ and detaining the globe in this position, draw a line
again by the eastern horizon, the space intercepted between this and the line of
the sun's settings, before described on the globe, comprehends all those places
on the earth from sun setting till 1/. is set. But if 1/. were in antecedence of
the sun, subtract the difference of his and the sun's right ascensions from the
meridional longitude, set the degree of the equator answering to the remainder
under the meridian, and elevate the pole next Jupiter equal to his declination ;
keeping the globe in this position, draw a line by the western edge of the horizon,
then the space included between this and the line of the sun's risings, contains all
those places on the earth where this eclipse is visible between ^'srisingand sunrise.

When any eclipse of these is observed, the difference between the noted
time and that in the catalogue, will be the difference of meridians between the
place of the observation and London, which lies so near the meridian of the
observatory, that the distance need not be accounted for. And this determina-
tion may be relied on, if the first or third satellite were observed ; but I dare
not be so confident of the second and fourth for the reasons formerly given.
However, I shall make it my business to observe all such eclipses of as many of
them as shall be visible with us, that by comparing my observations with such
as shall be made abroad, the error, if any, may be discovered and corrected.

When 1/. is in quartile of the sun, the distance of the first satellite from his
next limb, when it falls into his shadow and is eclipsed, is one semidiameter of
ly: ; of the second, 2, or a whole diameter nearly; of the third, 3; of the
fourth, 5 of his semidiameters, or something better when the parallax of the
orb is greatest. But these quantities diminish gradually as he approaches the ^5
or § of the sun, somewhat nearly, but not exactly, in the proportion of the signs.

As the sun removes from the c5 of ^ , the ingresses of the satellites into his
shadow become observable. When he is about 30° from it, the emersions of
the 4th, and at 6o°, of the 3d, begin to be seen between the shadow and body;
continuing so till the sun be arrived within 6o° of the <? of "]/ , when the emer-
sions of the 3d fall behind his body, but the emersions of the 4th continue visible
till he be less than 30° distant from the § , at which time they also are hid be-
hind him, all the appearances being made really to the right hand or in antece-
dence of %, though with inverting telescopes they appear the contrary, to the left.

After the opposition of the O and 1/. , we begin to see the emersions of all
the satellites from the shadow, now on the left hand or in consequence of 1/.,

^OL. Xm.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 683

but through inverting glasses on the right, when the 0 is near 30° from the
opposition of the ingresses of the 4th, when 6o° from it of the 3d, begin to
be observable between the body and shadow, continuing so till the sun arrive at
the same, or rather within a wider distance from the c5 o^ 7^ •

[Tlie catalogue of calculated eclipses is omitted, as of no use at this time.]

A short Account of the Comet of the Year 1 683. By M, Hevelius. N° 1 54, p. 4 1 6.

After noting the daily observations and appearances of the comet, tracing its
course among the fixed stars, M. Hevelius from these deduces the following ta-
ble of its motions and observed places.

M. D.

Longitude.

Latitude.

Diur

.Mot.

Declination.

Right Ascen.

July 30

7° o's

29°

15'n

0

1

51°

30' N

100° 0*

31

6 25

29

0

0

42

August 1

5 45

28

45

0

44

2

5 0

28

30

0

46

3

4 10

28

15

0

48

4

3 20

28

0

0

50

51

40

96 0

5

2 20

27

45

0

52

6

1 20

27

30

0

54

7

0 20

27

15

0

56

8

29 20 n

27

0

0

58

9

28 20

26

40

0

10

27 20

26

20

2

11

26 20

25

55

4

12

25 20

25

30

6

13

24 20

25

0

8

14

23 20

24

30

^

10

15

22 20

24

0

12

l6

21 10

23

20

14

46

0

77 0

17

19 20

22

30

19

18

17 40

21

30

25

44

0

73 30

19

16 0

20

30

35

20

14 20

19

15

45

41

0

69 30

21

12 20

18

0

55

22

10 20

i6

45

2

5

23

8 20

15

30

2

15

24

6 20

14

15

2

25

35

0

60 40

25

3 50

12

45

2

40

26

1 5

11

0

2

55

27

28 15 0

9

0

3

10

28

25 15

6

30

3

25

24

30

51 0

29

22 15

4

0

3

40

21

30

48 30

k

30

18 55

1

30

3

55

18

0

45 40

31

16 25

1

0 s

4

5

Sept. 1

12 55

3

30

4

20

2

9 55

6

0

4

40

10

30

40 0

3

6 25

8

40

5

5

4

2 35

11

20

5

30

1

30

34 0

4 S 2

684 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1683.

Hence it appears that this comet moved retrograde, or contrary to the order
of the signs, its motion in the ecliptic, during the interval in the table, being
63° 53', but 74° 35' in its own orbit, which was inclined to the ecliptic in
an angle of 39°, but to the equinoctial 56°. Its latitude at first was 29° 15' N.
and at last 1 1° 20' S.; so that it varied its latitude almost 41°. As to the head
of this comet, its diameter at first was much less than afterwards; but, on the
other hand, it was much brighter at first than towards the end. It exhibited no
distinct and fulgent nucleus, as I have seen in most comets, but appeared a con-
fused mass of matter, which became much thinner towards the conclusion. As
it was seen mostly without a tail, it may be numbered among the hairy comets,
or those that have beards like goats; for it extended upwards its very short and
diluted bristles only till Aug. 18; which afterwards quite disappeared.

Account of the Book, De Urinis, Pulsihus ; de Missione Sanguinis ; de Fehribus ;
de Morbis Capitis; et Pectoris: Opus Laurentii Bellini: Bononiie, l683.
N° 154, p. 425.

With this work all our medical readers are so well acquainted, that to retain
the account of it, inserted in the Transactions soon after its first publication,
cannot now be desirable.

Account of Mr. Boyle's Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood,
especially the Spirit of that Liquor. Lond. l683. N° 154, p. 428.

This book is divided by its honourable and learned author into 4 parts ; in
the 1st of which he lays down some rules, concerning the way of compiling the
natural history of any particular subject; where he proposes that whatever occurs
concerning the subject to be treated of, may be ranked under several orders or
classes, agreeing in the general names of titles : the first or primary order, the
author would have to consist of such titles as shall comprehend the whole matter
of the subject, as it appears at first view : but when the matter of any primary
title encreases on hand, it will be proper that that also should be divided, ac-
cording to its own nature, into several subordinate branches, or secondary
titles.

And further he says it will be useful that a mantissa should be subjoined to
the first edition of the titles, consisting of paralipomena and addenda : pursuant
to which method, the author gives the titles of the first order, for the natural
history of human blood of healthy men; and has also marked out a way for.
the natural history of urine.

The 2d part contains miscellaneous experiments and observations, about
human blood, referable to some one of the titles of the first order : thus he

VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 685

treats of the heat of human blood freshly emitted; of the inflammability; of the
specific gravity; of the volatile salt of human blood, and its figure; of the two
oils; of the fixed salt, of the terra damnata; of the proportion of diflfering sub-
stances chemically obtained from human blood.

The 3d part contains promiscuous experiments and observations, about the
serum of healthy men's blood.

The 4th part contains the history of the spirit of human blood begun ; and is
a summary of the history of volatile salts in general : under these (secondary)
titles. 1 . Whether human blood may be so ordered by fermentation or putre-
faction, as that in distillation, a spirit, either urinous, or vinous, may ascend
before the phlegm ? 2. Whether spirit of human blood be really any thing, but
the volatile salt and phlegm well commixed ? 3. Of the species of saline bodies
to which the spirit of human blood is to be referred. 4. Whether spirit of hu-
man blood be different from spirit of urine, and other spirits that are called
volatile alkalies. 5. Of the quantity of spirit contained in human blood, whether
accompanied with its serum, or dried. 6. Of the consistence and specific
gravity. 7* Of the odour, taste, colour, and transparency. 8. Of the disso-
lutive power of spirit of human blood. Q. Of the tinctures that may be drawn
with spirit of human blood. 10. Of the coagulating power. ]1. Of the pre-
cipitating power of spirit of human blood. 12. Of the affinity between spirit of
human blood and some chemical oils, and vinous spirits. 13. Of the relation
between spirit of human blood and the air. 14. Of the hostility of the spirit of
human blood to acids, whether they be in the form of liquors or fumes. 15. Of
the medicinal virtues of the spirit of human blood applied outwardly, and l(5
inwardly.

After which follows the appendix ; where, among other things, under the
title of the several ways of distilling human blood, the author gives an account
of his success in distilling three portions of dried blood, each with a different
additament, as with quicklime, calcined tartar, and oil of vitriol.*

END OP VOLUME THIRTEENTH OP THE ORIGINAL.

* The knowledge which philosophers possessed at this period of time, respecting the nature of the
blood circulating in the vessels of man and other respiring animals was, in many particulars, very
obscure and incomplete. Modem chemists have shown, and particularly the French chemists, that
it is resolvable into a great variety of component parts, some of which it has in common with the
other animal fluids, and even with some of the solids ; while others of its component parts are, as a
fluid, peculiar to itself. Besides the three distinct animal matters, albumen, gelatine, and fibrine,
(diffused in a large proportion of water) it contains a considerable number of salts. To one of
these (consisting of phosphoric acid and iron) its red colour is attributable. It also contains a por-
tion of sulphur, combined with hydrogen and ammonia. This will account for some of the proper-
ties ascribed by Mr. Boyle^ to what he terms the " spirit of blood."

END OF VOLUME SECOND.

CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS TO VOLUME II.

Page 76, in the note, for killed read skilled.

126, 1. 23, for " notion of pearls" read " origin of pearls."
282, for *' Ap;)^»jiAii7u?" read " Ap^tjM.iiJ'g?."

356, in the note, for " calculus concretion" read " calculous concretion.'*
In the running title from p. 203 to p. 231 , for vol. ix. read vol. x.
To the note on alum, p. 458, add: Kelp ashes are an impure saline pro-
duct. Besides other saline matters, they contain both soda (mineral al-
kali) and potash (vegetable alkali). It would appear that it is the last-
mentioned alkali which renders the kelp-ashes useful in the preparation of
alum. — ^When, together with the incinerated ashes of vegetables, putrid
urine is also employed, the obtained alum is a quadruple salt. There is
much room for improvement in the fabrication of this compound salt, so
useful in the processes of dying and other arts.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND VOLUME.

Besides the remaining Part of Volume Seven, this Second Volume con-
tains Abridgments of Volumes 8, ^, 10, 11^ 12 and 13 of the Original
Transactions; together with the Seven Numbers (abridged) of the Philosophical
Collections.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECOND.

HPage
EIGHT of Mercury in a Tube; by
Huygens 1

Structure of tlie Lungs ; by Mr. Templer. . 3
Astronomical Observations; by Flamsteed, . 5

Concerning the Lake of Geneva 6

Account of Books, viz,

1. Hobbes's Lux Mathematica ibid

2. Huret's Optique de Portraiture, &c ibid

3. Gormani, Homo ex Ovo ibid

4. Fr. Drope, on Ordering Fruit Trees. ... 7
On Kermes and Cochineal; by Mr. Lister. . ibid

On Vipers; by Mr. Tho. Plott 8

Dr. Wallis's Answer to Lux Mathematica . . 11

de Centro Gravit. Hyperbolae. . 12

Biographical Notice of Mr. Horrox ibid

Account of some Books, viz.

1. Fr.Glisson, deNatura Substantiae Energ. ibid

2. Jeremy Horrox, Opera Posthuma. . . . ibid

3. Malpighi, de Formatione Pulli iu Ovo 13

4. Du Hamel, de Mente humana ibid

Newton's Answer to some Considerations on

his Doctrine of Light and Colours ibid

Biographical Notice of Otto Guericke 29

Account of two Books, viz.

1. Otto Guericke, Experimenta Nova. . . . ibid

2. Tho. Burnet, Thesaurus Medicinae Prac. 30

Mr. Boyle, on some shining Flesh 31

Mr. Lister, on a strange kind of Mushroom. . 33

Mr. Flamsteed, on the Planet Mars, &c 34

Account of two Books, viz.

1 . Prose de Signori Academici di Bologna. . ibid

2. Divers Voyages Curieux, 4 partie. . . . ibid

On Veins in Plants ; by Mr. Lister ibid

A strange Frost about Bristol 37

R. F. Sluse, on drawing Tangents to Curves 38
Account of some Books, viz.

1. R. Bohn, on the Properties of Wind . . 41

2. Pardies, Machines a faire les Quadrans 42
Mr. Boyle on the varying Wt. of the Atmosp, ibid
Dr. "Wall is on the great Height of Barora. . . 44
Account of two Books, viz.

1. Ray's Travels in Flanders, Germany, &c. 50

2. Vareni Greographia Generalis ibid

Biographical Notice of Bern. Varennius ibid

Two new Satellites of Saturn; by Cassini. . ibid

VOL. II.

On fixed Salts; by Vender Becke 54

The Nature of Snow ; by Dr. Grew ibid

Freezing Rain ; by Dr. Wallis 5^

Account of two Books, viz.

1 . Experiments on Air and Water ; by Mr.
Boyle ibid

2. Retdi, Experienze di diverse Cose Nat. 58

Management of the Cacao-tree 59

On Stones for building, &c ibid

Virginia, usefiil for Ship-building 6o

Cultivation of Vines ; by Mr. Templer. . . . ibid

Motion of Urchins' Hearts; by the same. . 6 1

Observations on Turkey ibid

Account of two Books, viz.

1. Vini Rhenani, a Job. Davide 62

2. De Poematum Cantu et Viribus Rythmi ibid
Vibrations in Cycloids; by Ld. Brouncker. , 64
Observations on Jupiter ; by Mr. Flamsteed 65

Leuwenhoeck, Microscop. Observat 66

Biographical Notice of Leuwenhoeck ibid

A strong Styptic; by M. Denys 67

Cast-metal improved 6S

Animals wanting the Pulmonary Artery; by

Dr. Swammerdam 69

Account of some Books, viz.

1. La Statique; par le Pere Pardies 70

2. Anton, le Grand, Historia Naturae ibid

3. Two Arithm . Instruments ; by Mor eland 7 1

4. Travels in Hungar>% &c. by Dr. Brown ibid

Biographical Notice of M. Wiseman ibid

Experiments with Denys's Styptic ibid

The same, made at Paris 72

Slusius on Tangents to Curves 74

Dr. Wallis on the Veins in Plants ibid

Mr. Lister on the Chyle and Worms 75

Magnetical Variations; by H. Bond 78

On catching Carp; by Mr. Templer ibid

Raising Fruit-trees; by Mr. Lewis 79

Account of some Books, viz.

1. Hugenii Horologium Oscillatorium . . ibid

2. Modem Fortification ; by S^ir J. Moore 80

3. Kersey's Elements of Algebra 81

Biographical Notice of Sir Jonas Moore. . 80

A Bee-house, used in Scotland 81

Wonderful Effects of Denys's Styptic. ... 82
a

CONTENTS.

Page

J. Sinclair's Delineating Machine 84

On Newton's Doctrine of Colours. ^ 85

Newton's Answer to the same 86

Effects of Thunder on Corn 3 by M. Kirkley 89

Uncommon Case in Physic j by the same. . 90

On Mars and Jupiter; by Mr. Flamsteed. . ibid

Boyle, on Effluviums, Fire, Flame, &c. . . 91

Newton, on the N'^ and Mixture of Colours ibid

Answer to the same, from Paris 94

Mr. Boyle, on Ambergis ibid

Further Success of Denys's Styptic 95

Figures to Leuwenhoeck's Experiments. , . . ibid

Alhazen's Prob. by Huygens and Sluse. ... 97
Account of four Books, viz.

1. Boyle's Tracts on the Sea, &c 103

2. Hobbes, Principia et Problemata. . . . ibid

3. Dr. Grew, Phytological History, &c, ibid

4. Th. Bartholini Acta Medica, &c 105

Tides about the Orcades; by Sir R. Moray 106

Biographical Notice of Sir R. Moray ibid

Alhazen's Prob, ; by Huygens and Sluse.. 107

Biographical Notice of Mr. Wm. Neil 112

Wallis, on a Right- Line, equal to a Curve ibid

Ld. Brouncker, on the same 113

Sir Chr. Wren, on the same 114

Du Hamel, De Corpore Animate 115

On Stones in the Bladder; by M. Kirkley. . ibid

Of an uncommon Foetus; by M. Denys. . 116'

Of some Natural Curiosities ibid

Account of some Books, viz.

1. Dr. Willis, Pharmaceufire Ratinnalis 118

2. J. Hevelii Machinae Coelestis 1 19

5. Bulk and Selvage of the World; by
Fairfax ibid

4. Eygel, Apologema pro Urinis Hum. ibid

A Subterraneous Fungus, &c. by M. Lister ibid

Trochitae and Entrochi ; by Mr. Lister 121

Icy Mountain at Berne, in Helvetia 123

To preserve Ships from the Worm ibid

Account of some Books, viz.

1. Musica Speculativa del Mangoli .... 124

2. G. Wedelius, deSaleVolatiliPlantarum ibid

Description of Nova Zembla ibid

Dr. Coxe, on Volatile Salt from Vegetables ibid

Stones of a Gold Colour ; by Dr. Johnston 125

Origin of Pearls; by M. Chr. Sandries 126

Account of some Books, viz.

1 . R. Hooke on the Earth's Motion ibid

2. Medicina Militaris; by Dr. Minderer . 127

3. Ephemeridum Medico-Physicarum ibid

4. England's Inter. &c. ; by S. Fortey,Esq. ibid
Compression of the Air; by Leuwenhoeck 128
Microscopical Observations; by the same . . ibid
On raising Water; by Sir Sam. Moreland. . 129

On Parhelias; by M. Hevelius 130

On Kepler's Manuscripts ibid

Biographical Notice of Kepler ibid

Page
Account of some Books, viz.

1 . Joh. Schefferi Lapponia 133

2. True Enghsh Inter. ; by C. Reynel, Esq. ibid

3. England's Improvement; by J. Smith ibid
Observations and Experiments on Vitriol . . 133

On Salt and Sheep; by Dr. Beal ibid

Account of some Books, viz.

1 . Boyle on the Mechanical Hypothesis. . ibid

2. On Smith's England's Improvement . . ibid

3. D. Vonder Becke, Exper. circa Nat.
Rer. Prin ibid

On Vitriol, Sulphur, and Alum ibid

On a new Astron. Chronol. ; by Hevelius . . 134
Account of some Books, viz.

1 . On the Torricellian Experiments .... ibid

2. Mathem. Compend, of Sir J. Moore . . ibid

3. Jones et Deser. Rar. Pant, a P. Boscone ibid

4. J. Evelyn on Navigation and Commerce ibid

M. Huygens on the Earth's Motion 135

M. Cassini on the same subject ibid

A Comet seen at Brasil; by P. V. Estancel ibid

Directions for Tanning Leather 136

Further Remarks on Snails ; by Mr. Lister. 138

A Woman of 60 giving suck 141

Account of Books, viz.

1. Dr. Mayow, de Sale-Nitro et Spir. Nit.
Aer 142

2. Diemerbroeck, Anatom. Corporis Hum. 148
Biographical Notice of Diemerbroeck .... ibid
Microscopical Observations; by Leuwenhoeck 1 49

The same; by the same 151

Dropsy mistaken for Pregnancy; by Tulpius 152

Biographical Notice of Dr. Tulpius ibid

Account of Books, viz.

1. De Secretione Animali Cogit. a G. Cole 153

2. E. Bartholini Selecta Geometrica ibid

3. Logica, sive Ars Cogitandi 154

Dr. Sampson on a Man's Bowels inverted . . ibid

Mr. Boyle on Van Helmont's Laudanum . . 155

Biographical Notice of J. B. Van Helmont ibid

Dr. Coxe on Alcalizate or Fixed Salt 153

Account of Books, viz.

1. E. Bartholini de Natura Quest, Acad. 163

2. T. Bartholini de Anatom. Practica, &c. ibid

3. Drelincourt de Tailler la Pierre, &c, . . 164

Dr, D, Coxe on Volatile Salts, &c iQS

More Observations; by M, Leuwenhoeck . ibid
Account of Books, viz,

1. W. J. Muller, Africanische Lands-
chaft, &c 168

2. Art of Metals ; by Alonso Barba .... ibid

3. The Royal Almanack; byN. Stevenson 169
On a great Bleeding in a Child; by M. du

Gard ibid

Dr. Ed. Brown on the Zirchnitzer Sea 170

On the Nordi-east Rout to India 171

On the North-west Rout to the same . , , . ibid

CONTENTS.

Ui

PaRC

fiiographical Notice of Sir Wm. Petty. . . . 172
Account of Books, viz.

1 . Uses of Duplicate Proportion ; by Petty ibid

2. Hooke against the Machina Coelestis, . IZ-t

Linus against Newton on Colours 175

Newton's Answer to the same 176

Mr. Flamsteed on Street's Moon-wiser .... 177

. New Solar Numbers .... 178

Nat. Hist. Experiments; by Mr. Lister .. 179
Account of Books, viz.

1. Tracts; by Mr. Boyle 183

2. De Chales, Cursus Mathematicus .... 184

3. Manilius's Sphere; by Sherburne. ... 185

4. Avona, or Navigable Rivers; by R. S. 186

5. Education of Youth ; by Mr. Lewis . . 1 87
Biographical Notice of De Chales 184

'. of Ed. Sherburne, Esq. 185

Lunar Eclipse; by Hooke, Flamsteed, &c. 187

Account of Iceland; by B. D. P. Biernon . . ibid

Rural and Economical Inquiries 189

Diagonal Divisions ; by Dr. Wallis ibid

Account of Books, viz.

1. Mr. Boyle on the Resurrection 192

2. Munting, Waare OefFening der Planten ibid

3. Prevention of Poverty ; by Rd. Haynes 193
Lunar Eclipse; by Cassini, Picard, &c. . . . ibid

The Earth's Meridian ; by Picard ibid

Huygens's Portable Watches 199

Rupture of tlie Mesentery ; by Swammerdam ibid

Astroites, or Star-stones; by M. Lister 200

Biographical Notice of Perrault 202

Account of Books, viz.

1. Architecture de Vitruve; par Perrault ibid

2. Le Grand, de Carentia Sensus, &c . . 203

Leibnitz's Portable Watches ibid

Lunar Eclipse and Occultation; by Hevelius 205

Culture by Sea- weed; by Dr. Dan. Coxe. . 206

Biographical Notice of H. Conringius .... ibid

■ of Paracelsus 209

Account of Books, viz.

1. Borrichius, Hermetis Egyptiorum, Sec. ibid

2. The Garden of Eden; by Sir H. Piatt 210
A Storm and some Lakes; by Sir G. Mac-
kenzie ibid

The Air-Bladders in Fishes; by A. 1 211

Poisonous Fish in the Bahamas; by J, L. . . 213
Extraor. Oranges and Lemons; by P. Natus ibid
Account of Books, viz.

1. Archimedes, Apollonius, &c. a Barrow 214

2. T. Bartholini Acta Medica, &c ibid

3. Epitome of Husbandry; by J. B ibid

Morison's New Universal Herbal 214

New Essay Instrument; by Mr. Boyle ibid

Swimming Bladders in Fishes; by Ray 218

Plants, Trees, &c. to a great Size 219

Frosts, Tempests, &c. in Scotland; by Dr.

Beale 220

a

Pane

Horrox's Lunar System ; by Flamsteed .... 220

Lunar Eclipse observed; by Flamsteed 221

Account of the Planter's Manual ; by Char. .

Cotton 222

Microscopical Observat. ; by Leuwenliocck ibid
On the Rainbow; by M. Fr. Linus ...... ibid

Lunar Eclipse observed at Paris 223

Mine-damps, and on Worms; by Mr. Jessop 224
Observat. in Scotland; by Sir G. Mackenzie 2'26
Observations at Barbadoes; by Dr. Towns 228
Account of Books ; viz.

1. Malpighii Anatome Plantarum 229

2. Bohn, de Alcali and Acidi Insuffic . . 232

3. Zymologia Chymica; by Dr. Sympson ibid

On the North-east Passage 233

On the First Meridian; by Flamsteed .... 236

Biographical Notice of Sennert 237

Account of Books, viz.

1. Jac. Barneri Prodromus Sennerti .... ibid

2. Hooke, on Helioscopes, &c ibid

Pneumat. Exper. by Huygens and Papin . . 239

Biographical Notice of Nic. Papin ibid

Origin of Fountains ; by Denys Papin .... 242

On Damps in Mines; by Mr. Jessop 244

Account of Books, viz.

1. Discourse on Earths; by Mr. Evelyn 245

2. On the Isles of Feroe; by L. J. Debes ibid

3. The Gentleman's Recreation in 4 parts 245

Experiments on Air ; by Mr. Boyle ibid

Pneumat. Exper. ; by Huygens and Papin . . 250
Account of Books, viz.

1. Fr. Willughbeii Omithologia 252

2. Grew's Anat. of the Trunks of Trees 253

3. Stevenson's Royal Almanac 257

Pneumat. Exper. ; by Huygens and Papin . . ibid
Lunar Eclipse observed by Flamsteed .... 259
Fr. Linus against Newton on Light, &c. . . 260

Newton's Reply to the same 261

another on the same 263

Biographical Notice of J. Chr. Sturm .... 265
Account of Books, viz.

1. Willis, Pharmaceutice Rationalis .... ibid

2. J. C. Sturm, Collegium Experimentale ibid

3. England's Improvements; by R. Cook 266

4. College of Physicians vindicated; bj

Goodall 267

Incalescence of Quicksilver, &c. ; by B. R. ibid
Observat. on former Transactions; Anon. . . 270
Pneumat. Exper.; by Huygens and Papin 271

The same continued 272

Biographical Notice of M. Blondel 274

Account of Books, viz.

1. Blondel, Cours d' Architecture ibid

2. Dr. Mores Remarks on some Treatises 275
Another Answer to Linus ; by Newton . . 276

Cassini on a Lunar Eclipse 280

Transit of tlie Moon and Jupiter 3 by Flamst. 281

2

iv

CONTENTS.

Page
Account of Books, viz.

1. Archimedes's Arenarius; by Wallis . . 282

2. Sydenham, Observationes Medicae . . 283

3. Du Hamel, De Consensu Vet. et Novae ibid

4. Of Education j Anonymous ibid

5. Bathoniensium et Aquisgr. a R. P. . , 284

6. Vinetum Britannicumj by J. W ibid

Fr. Vernon's Travels in Dalmatia, &c ibid

Dr. Beal, on the Vinetum Britannicum. , . . 288
A Lunar Eclipse observed 3 by Hevelius . . ibid
Account of Booksj viz.

1 and 2. Memoires pour servir a I'Hist. 289
3. A Sammes, Britannia Antiq. lUust. . . 292

On Shining Flesh; by Dr. J. Beal 294

Structure of the Intestines j by Dr. Cole . . 295
Account of Books, viz.

1. N. Mercatoris Instit, Astron 299

2. Du Clos, sur les Eaux Minerales .... 300

3. Curiosities of Scurvy Grass J Dr.Sherley ibid

4. Two Medical Treatises; Busschof, &-c. ibid

5. De Blegny, on the Venereal Disease 301
Account of Virginia ; by Tho. Glover .... ibid

A Degree of a Great Circle, &c 305

Solar Eclipse observed; by Smethwick, &c. 306
Biographical Notice of M. J. Prestet .... 307
Account of Books, viz.

1. Elemens des Mathematiques; par J. P. ibid

2. De lArt de Parler 308

3. M. Cooke on Forest Trees, &c ibid

4 and 5. The French Gardener 309

Effects of Thunder on Sea Compasses, &c. ibid
Leuwenhoeck on the Texture of Trees, &c. 3 1 2
Solar Eclipse observed by M. Hevelius .... 3l6

Mr. Flamsteed on a Solar Eclipse ibid

The same Eclipse; by Mr. Townly 3l8

— — by M. M. Immanuel, Cassini, Hevelius 319

Math. Hist. Table; by Dr. Mangold 320

Account of Books, viz.

1. Experiments, Notes, &c.; by Mr. Boyle ibid

2. Th. Bartholin, de Peregrin. Medica,&c. 321

3. G. H. V. Hecatoste, Observ. Phys,

Med ibid

4. J. N. Pechlin, de Aeris et Aliment, ibid

Biographical Notice of Pechlin ibid

On an Hydraulic Engine, from Paris 323

Cassini, on Jupiter's SatelUtes 324

Halley, on the Aphelia, &c. of Planets 326

Biographical Notice of Mr. Halley ibid

Flamsteed on the Solar Spots 331

Cassini, on a Solar Spot and Saturn 332

Borelli, on large Telescopic Glasses 333

Lucas against Newton's Experiments .... 334

Newton's Answer to Lucas 338

Account of Books, viz.

1 . Glisson, de Ventriculo et Intestinis . . 343

2. M. Charas, Pharmacopee Royale .... ibid
Observations on Asiaj by Tavernier ibid

Page

A New Hygroscope; by Mr. J. Coniers . . 346

Mars occulted by the Moon ; Hevelius .... 349

The same; by Flamsteed and Halley 350

On Rock-plants ; by Mr. J. Beaumont .... 351
Biographical Notice of Ph. de la Hire .... 353
Account of Books, viz.

1. Ephemer. Med. Phys. German ibid

2. LaHire, NouvelleMeth.enGeom. &c. ibid

3. W. Briggs's Ophthalmographia .... 354

Tavernier's Voyages continued 355

Lake of Mexico ; and strange Rye 357

On Fire in a Coal Pit; by Dr. L. Hodgson 358
Account of Books, viz.

1. Roberti Boyle Opera Varia 36O

2. Travels in Germany; by Dr. Brown. . ibid

3. C. Bartholini Diaphragmatis Struct. . . ibid

4. Longitude found by Henry Bond .... 361

5. The Royal Almanac; by N.Stephenson ibid

Biographical Notice of Henry Bond ibid

Boyle, on the Figures of Contig. Fluids .... 362

On Phosphorus ; by Chr. Ad. Baldwin .... 368

Biographical Notice of C. A. Baldwin .... ibid
Account of Books, viz.

1. J. De Rae, Clavis Philos. Naturalis . . 369

2. Menard, Nouvelle Science des Tems ibid

3. England's Improvement, &c. by A.

Yarrailton ibid

Boyle's Fig. of Fluids continued 370

Account of Books, viz.

1. Gary's Palseologia Chronica 373^

2. Touchstone for Gold and Silver Wares;

by W. B 374

Agrestic Observations ; by Dr. Beale ibid

Leuwenhoeck, on Animalcules in Waters . . ibid

Two Satellites of Saturn; by Cassini 377

Account of Books, viz.

1. Pharmacopoeia Col. Regal. Lond 378

2. Ray, Catalogus Plantarum Angliae . . ibid

3. Aero Chalinos; by N. Henshaw .... 379

4. Philos. Essay on Music ibid

Trembling of Consonant Strings; Dr. Wallis 380

On Bononian Stone ; by Malpighi ... .... 382

Imitating Man, and Human Calculi; G.

Garden ibid

Leuwenhoeck, on Animalcules in Waters . . 383

Hortulan Observations ; by Dr. Beale .... 384

On New Stars; by M. Hevelius ibid

Account of two Books, viz.

1. Mariotte, Traite de la Percussion . . . 388

2. W. E. Heidel, Trithemii Steganog.

Vind ibid

An uncommon Meteor; by Dr. Wallis .... 389

Four kinds of Shining Substances 390

Cassini, on the late Comet ibid

The same observed, by Hevelius 39 1

The same observed, by Flamsteed 393

Biographical Notice of Dr. R. Plott 394

CONTENTS.

Page

Account of Books, viz.

1. Plott's Nat. Hist, of Oxfordshire 394

2. L' Architecture Navale, par Dassie . , 395

3. Dr. Simpson's Philos. Dialogues .... ibid

4. New Treatise of Chemistry j by Glaser ibid

Biographical Notice of Chr. Glaser ibid

A clieap and useful Pumpj by J. Conyers . . 396

The Motion of Lightj by M. Romer 397

Biographical Notice of Glaus Romer .... ibid

On Damps in Mines j by Mr. R, Moslyn . . 398

LeuwenhoeckjOn tlie Muscles, the Brain, &c. 401

Curious Celestial Globe j by I'Alleman .... 405

On Diamond Mines j by the Earl Marshal . . ibid

Biographical Notice of Sir Matthew Hale. . 411
Account of Books, viz.

1. The Origination of Mankind; by Sir

M. Hale ibid

2. J. V. Willins, de Morbis Castrensibus 412

3. A. Muller, de Rebus Sinicis ibid

4. The Curious Distillery; by J. Sigisin . . ibid

5. Sanctorius, Medicina Statica ibid

6. Systema Horticulturae ; by J. W 413

Biographical Notice of Sanctorius 412

J, Graves, on Hatching Chickens at Cairo 413

On Barnacles; by Sir Robert Moray 415

On the Hirta Isle; by the same 4l6

On the Camelion; by Dr. J. Goddard 418

On Iron Works; by H. Powle, Esq ibid

On making Cerusse; by Sir P. Vernati .... 421

Biographical Notice of Dr. Cudworth .... 422
Account of Books, viz.

1. Cudworth's Intellectual System .... ibid

2. J. B. Tavemier's Six Voyages 423

Culture of Saffron ; by the Hon. C. Howard ibid

Biographical Notice of J. B. Tavernier .... ibid

Tin Mines in Cornwall ; by Dr. Merret . , 424

Refining Gold; by Dr. J. Goddard 426

Biographical Notice of Dr. Goddard ibid

On a Monstrous Birth; by Dr. Morris 430

Account of Books, viz.

1. Charras's Royal Pharmacopoeia 431

2. Hobbes's Decameron Physiolog ibid

3. Moxon's Mechanic Exercises ibid

Occultation of Saturn; by Bulliald 432

On Red Snow at Genoa; by Sig. Sarolti . , ibid

Structure of the Nose ; by Du Vemey .... ibid

Biographical Notice of G. J. Du Vemey . . ibid

On Congo and Brazil; by De Guattini 434

On the Sorbus Pyriforrais; by Mr. Pitt ibid

A Child many Years within the Mother; by

M. Bayle 435

Biographical Notice of Fer. Bayle 435

Account of Books, viz.

1. Wallisii Exercitationes Tres ibid

2. M. Lister, Hist. Auimalium Angliae. . 436

3. Hooke's Lectures and Collections . . 437

Page
Disease in the Ovarium J by Dr. Sampson. . 437
Leuwenhoeck on the Structure of the Teeth 438
An Ascending Clock; by M. De Gennes . . 439
New Weaving Machine ; by the same .... ibid
On a Worm passed by Urine; by M. Milford 441
To judge of Tempers by the Voice; by Mr,

Ent ibid

Biographical Notice of Aldrovandus 442

Account of Books, viz.

1 . Museo Cospiano, &c. di L. Legati . . 443

2. Bibliotli. Coll. Paris, Soc. Jesu ibid

3. Du Cange, Glossar. ad Scriptores, &c. ibid

4. M. Duncan, Des Actions Animales . . 444

Biographical Notice of Du Cange 443

Lunar Eclipse observed, by Cassini 444

Solar Eclipse observed, by M. Gallet .... ibid

On Microscopes; by M. Butterfield 445

Speaking Trumpet improved, by Conyers . . ibid
Account of Books, viz.

1. On the Health at Jamaica; by Dr.

Traphane 446

2. Edm. Halley, Catal. Stellarum Austr. ibid
Anatomical Observations ; by Edw. Tyson . . 448

Biographical Notice of Dr. Tyson ibid

Four Ureters in a Child; by Dr. Tyson . . 450

Leuwenhoeck, de Natis e Semine, &c 45 1

The Art of Refining ; by Dr. Merrit .... 453
English Green Copperas; by D. Cotwall , . 4^1
The Salt-works at Droitwich; by Rastell . . 463

On Malt-making; by Sir R. Moray 469

Antidiatriba; by Dr. Geo. Ent 471

Biographical Notice of Dr. Ent ibid

Leuwenhoeck, on the Animals in Semine. . 473
Fire Damps in Mines ; by J. Beaumont .... 474

Overflowing of Rivers in Gascony 475

Bernier's Way of Flying 475

A Flying Ship ; by Fr. Lana 478

Occultation of Jupiter ; by Hevelius 480

The same; by Sig. Cassini 431

On Compound Interest; by A. Martindale 482
Account of Books, viz.

1. Malpighii Anat. Plantarum 433

2. Dodart, Histoire des Plantes 484

Biographical Notice of Dodart ibid

S. Lorenzini, on the Torpedo 435

Account of Okey-hole, &c. ; by J. Beaumont 487
On the Variation of the Needle, and on

Kunckel's Phosphorus; by Sturm 488

Biographical Notice of Kunckel 489

A dead Body mostly changed to Hair 490

Hair, Teetli, &c. within Bodies; by Tyson ibid

On the Plague; by Dr. Alprunus 491

Preservative from Infections; by Dr. Dobr-

zensky 492

On a Strange Birtli; by A. P 493

On the Structure of a Muscle; by Dr. C. . . ibid

VI

CONTENTS.

Page
On a New Al-mon-ac; by Dr. Wood .... 495

ANewLamp5 by Mr. Boyle 498

Account of Borelli's Book, De Motu Animal. 499
Anatomy of a Porpusj by Dr. Tyson .... 500

The English Atlas, vol. i 501

Dr. Samson, on Dissecting a Morbid Body ibid
Infinitely-infinite Fractions; by Dr. Wood 502

Exper, with Phosphorus; by Dr. Slare 505

Leuwenhoeck, Micros, Observations 507

To heal Short-sightedness; by Mr. Hook . . 508

On Mill-sails, &c.; by the same 509

Occultation of Aldebaran; by Hevelius . . 510

Lunar Eclipse observed at Paris ibid

The same observed by Flamsteed ibid

Strange Disease in a Patient ; by Dr. Konig ibid

Biographical Notice of Dr. T. Burnet 515

Account of Books, viz.

1. T. Burnet's Theory of the Earth .... ibid

2. Treatise on Phosphorus; by A. CelU. . ibid •

3. Fratta, Prattica Minerale 517

Experiment with Phosphorus; by Dr. Slare ibid

Dr. Lister on Roman Urns, &c. 518

New Discoveries, by Leuwenhoeck 520

Occvdtations of Aldebaran; Flamsteed 521

On Dr. Elsholt's Curious Experiment .... 522

On a Comet, observed by P. J ibid

Account of Books, viz.

1. On the late Comet; by D. Rossetti . . 524

2. On the same; by Dr. Anthelme .... 524

3. Olai Rudbeckii Atlantica 525

On Observations at Balasore; by Halley . , ibid

Biographical Notice of Dr. Pell 527

An Idea of Mathematics ; by Dr. Pell .... ibid

Objections to the same , by Mersenne 530

Biographical Notice of Mersenne ibid

Answer to Mersenne ; by Dr. Pell 532

Mersenne's Answer 533

Descartes, on the same ibid

Dissection of an Ostrich; by Dr. Brown . . 534
Leuwenhoeck, on Muscles and Oysters .... 536

Lunar Eclipse, observed by Hevelius 539

On a strange Animal vomited; by Dr. Lister ibid

New Theory of Vision; by Dr. Briggs 540

On Tasman's Land; by D. Rembrantse . . 542

Leuwenhoeck, on Muscular Fibres 543

On a Calculus in a Horse ; by Dr. H. P. . . 544

. Account of a Book on Comets 545

— — of Ja. Bernoulli, on Comets .... 546'

Biographical Notice of Ja. Bernoulli ibid

Leibnitz, on the Quadrature of the Circle . . 547
On Pen-park Hole; by Sir Rob. Soutliwell 551
Lister, on changing the Colour of the Chyle 554

Flamsteed, on High- water at London 555

Lunar Eclipse, observed by T. Heathcot . . 557
On a Comet, observed by M. Hevelius . . . . ibid
Biographical Notice of CI. Ptolemy 55$

Page

Account of New Books, viz.

1. CI. Ptolemaei Harmonic, a Wallis .. 559

2. Dublin Bills of Mortality 560

3. Godart, on Insects ; by M. Lister . ., ibid

4. Sturm, Observat. Magnet. Variat. . . ibid
Anatomy of a Rattle- Snake; by Dr. Tyson 56 1
Account of Books, viz.

1. M. Lister, de Fontibus Medicatis 577

2. J. A. Borelli, Opus Posthumum .... ibid

On a Roman Monument; by Lister 580

Leuwenhoeck, on Animal Generation .... ibid

Halley, on Saturn's 4th Satellite 584

Lunar Eclipse, observed by Flamsteed .... 587

Winder, on a Murrain in Switzerland .... ibid

Dr. Plott, on Salt and Sand firom Brine. . . . 589
Account of New Books, viz.

1. Hortus Indicus Malabaricus 590

2. Idem, pars secunda ibid

3. Idem, pars tertia 591

4. J. Bohn, Epistola ad D. J. Lange-

lottum ibid

5. J. Bamer, De Spirit. Vini sine Acido ibid

Dr. Tyson, on the Lumbricus Latus ibid

Lunar Eclipse observed at Paris, &c 604

The same, at Dantzic, by Hevelius 605

Dr. Tyson, on the Lumbricus Teres ibid

Dr. Lister, on a Case of Hydrophobia .... 6O8

Dr. Briggs, on Vision, continued 6I I

Cnrinns Case of a Bitch dissected 6l5

Anatomy of a Monstrous Pig 6l7

Refining of Metals; by Sir J. Pettus 6I8

Account of Brookhuy sen's CEconom. Ani-
mal ibid

Leuwenhoeck, on the Structure of Wood ibid

Halley, on the Magnetical Variation 624

Account of W.ten Rhyne's Tractatus 631

Biographical Notice of W. ten Rhyne ibid

M. Lister, on Roman Walls, &c 635

, Colour, &c. of the Chyle 637

Flamsteed, on Conjunct, of Jupiter and Sa-
turn ibid

Account of New Books, viz.

1. Du Verney, de I'Organe de I'Ouie . . 643

2. On Vision, by Perrault and Mariotte 644

3. J. Wagner, Histor. Natural. Helvetiae 645

4. J. Zimmerman, Cometo-scopia 646

On Rock-plants ; by J, Beaumont 647

Lister, on an uncommon Birth 648

M. de S. Maurice, on a Foetus in the

Ovarium 650

Philos. Experiments; by Dr. Slare 651

Account of New Books, viz.

1 . Dr. Grew's Anatomy of Plants 655

2. Olhoff, Excerpta ex Literis, &c 608

3. Sydenham, Tract, de Podagra et Hyd, ibid

4. T. Pigot, on the Earthquake at Oxford ibid

CONTENTS.

TJl

Flamsteed, on Eclipses of Jupiter's Satel, . . 6oO

Musgrave, on cutting out the Caecum 66' 1

Biographical Notice ot'Wm. Musgrave .... ibid
Hevelius, on Conjunct, of Jupiter and Sa-
turn 662

, on Occultations of fixed Stars . . 663

Observations on Constantinople, by T. Smith 664
F/euwenhoeck, G^eneration of Frogs, &c. . . ibid

Pajce

Account of Uova di Chiocciole, &c 667

Anatomy of the Musk-Hog; by Tyson . , 668
Account of Spon's Recherches Curieuses . . 677

Wallis, on the Numeral Characters ibid

Flamsteed, Eclipse of Jupiter's Satellites . . 679

Hevelius, on a New Comet 683

Account of Bellini, de Urinis, Pulsibus, &c. 684
Boyle, on Human Blood, its Spirit, &c. . . ibid

THE CONTENTS CLASSED UNDER GENERAL HEADS.

Natural Philosophy — Acoustics, Astronomy, Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, Hydrology,
Magnetics, Meteorology, Optics, Pneumatics.

HPage
EIGHT of Merc, in a Tube ; by Huygens 1

Astronomical Observations j by Flamsteed 5

On the Lake of Geneva 6

Newton's Answer to Objections, &c 13

Flamsteed, on the planet Mars, &c 34

Boyle, on the varying Weight of the Atmos. 42

Wallis, on the great Height of Barometer 44

Two new Satellites of Saturn ; by Cassini . . 50

Flamsteed, on the planet Jupiter 65

Magnetical Variations j by H. Bond 78

Against Newton's Doctrine of Colours .... 85

Newton's Answer to the same 86

Effects of Thunder on Corn ; by Kirkeley 89

Flamsteed, on Mars and Jupiter 90

Boyle, on Effluviums, Fire, Flame, &c. ... 91

Newton, on the Num. andMixt. of Colours ibid

Answer to the same, from Paris 94

Huygens and Sluse, on Alhazen's Problem 97

— — — — on the same 107

Compression of the Air; by Leuwenhoeck 128

On raising Water; by Sir S. Moreland 129

On Parheliasj by M. Hevelius 130

On Kepler's Manuscripts ibid

On a new Astronom. Chronol.j by Hevelius 134

Huygens, on the Earth's Motion 135

Cassini, on the same ibid

On a Comet at Brasil; by Estancel ibid

Linus against Newton on Colours 175

Newton's Answer to the same 176

Flamsteed, on Street's Moon-wiser 177

- — on New Solar Numbers 178

Lunar Eclipse; by Flamsteed, Hook, &c. . 187

— by Cassini, Picard, &c. . . . 193

The Earth's Meridian; by Picard ibid

Lunar Eclipse and Occultation; by Hevelius 205

A Storm, and some Lakes ; Sir G. Mackenzie 210

New Essay Instrument ; by Boyle 214

Frosts, Tempests, &c. ; by Dr. Beale 220

Horrox's Lunar System; by Flamsteed .... ibid

Lunar Eclipse observed by Flamsteed 221

Linus, on the Rainbow r. . . 222

Page

Lunar Eclipse observed at Paris 223

Flamsteed, on the First Meridian 236

Pneumatic Exper. ; by Huygens and Papin 239

Origin of Fountains; by Denys Papin .... 242

Experiments on Air; by Mr. Boyle 246

Pneumatic Exper. ; by Huygens and Papin 255

— — — — by the same 257

Lunar Eclipse observed by Flamsteed .... 259

Linus against Newton on Light 260

Newton's Reply to the same 26l

■ another on the same 263

Pneumatic Exper.; by Huygens and Papin 271

The same continued 272

Another Answer to Linus ; by Newton .... 276

Lunar Eclipse; by Cassini 280

Transit of the Moon and Jup. ; by Flamsteed 281

Lunar Eclipse observed by Hevelius 288

A Degree of a great Circle, &c 305

Solar Eclipse observed by Smethwick, &c. . 306

Effects of Thunder on Sea Compasses, &c. . 309

Solar Eclipse observed by Hevelius 3l6

On a Solar Eclipse; by Flamsteed ibid

The same Eclipse: by Mr. Townly 318

Also by Immanuel, Cassini, Hevelius .... 319

Hydraulic Engine from Paris 323

Cassini, on Jupiter's Satellites 324

Halley, on the Aphelia, &c. of Planets 326

Flamsteed, on the Solar Spots 331

Cassini, on a Solar Spot and Saturn 332

Borelli, on large Telescope-glasses 333

Lucas against Newton's Experiments 334

Newton's Answer to Lucas 338

A new Hygroscope; by Mr. Coniers 346

Occultation of Mars ; by Hevelius 349

The same; by Flamsteed and Halley 350

Boyle, on the Figures of Contiguous Fluids 362

The same continued 370

Two Satellites of Saturn; by Cassini 377

Trembling of Consonant Strings; by Wallis 380

On New Stars; by Hevelius '. 384

An uncommon Meteor; by Wallis 389

CONTENTS.

IX

Ptge

Cassini, on the late Comet 3<X>

The same, observed by Hevelius 391

The same also; by Flamsteed 393

A cheap and useful Pump; by Conyers. . . . 396'

The Motion of Light; by Romer 397

Curious Celestial Globe ; by 1' Alleman .... 405

Occultation of Saturn; by Bulliald 432

Lunar Eclipse observed by Cassini 444

Solar Eclipse observed by M. Gallet ibid

On Microscopes; by M. Butterfield 445

Speaking Trumpet improved ; by Conyers . . ibid

Occultation of Jupiter; by Hevelius 480

The same; by Sig. Cassini 481

Variation of the Needle and Kunchel's Phos-
phorus; by Sturm 488

A new Lamp; by Mr. Boyle 498

Experiments with Phosphorus; by Dr. Slare 505
To help Short-sightedness; by Mr. Hooke 508
Occultation of Aldebaran; by Hevelius. .. . 510

Lunar Eclipse observed at Paris ibid

The same observed by Flamsteed ibid

Face
Experiments with Phosphorus; by Dr. Slare 517
Occultations of Aldebaran ; by Flamsteed . . 521

On a Comet; ol)«crved by P. J 528

On Observations at Ballasorc; by Halley . . 525

Lunar Eclipse, observed by Hevelius 539

New Theory of Vision ; by Dr. Briggs .... 540
Flamsteed, on High-water at London .... 555

Lunar Eclipse observed by Heathcot 557

A Comet observed by Hevelius ibid

Halley, on Saturn's fourth Satellite 584

Lunar Eclipse observed by Flamsteed .... 587

at Paris 604

•■ by Hevelius 6o5

Dr. Briggs, on Vision, continued 61 1

Halley, on Magnetical Variation 624

Flamsteed, Conjunction of Jup. and Saturn 637

Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites . . 66O

Hevelius, Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn 662

Occultations of Fixed Stars 663

Flamsteed, Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites . . 679
Hevelius, on a New Comet 683

Anatomy, Chemistry, Medicine, PJiarmacy, Physiology, Surgery, ^c.

Structure of the Lungs ; by Mr. Templer

A Strong Styptic ; by M. Denys

Animals wanting the Pulmonary Artery; by

Swammerdam

Experiments witli Denys's Styptic

The same, at Paris

Mr. Lister, on the Chyle aud Worms ....

Effects of Denys's Styptic

Uncommon Case in Physic; by Kirkby. . . .

Further Success of Denys's Styptic

On Stones in the Bladder; by Mr. Kirley. .
An uncommon Foetus; by M. Denys ....

To Preserve Ships from the Worm

A Woman of 60 giving Suck

Dropsy mistaken for Pregnancy; by Tulpius
Sampson, on a Man's Bowels inverted ....

Boyle, on Van Helmont's Laudanum

Alcalizate or fixed Salt; by Dr. Coxe

On Volatile Salts ; by the same

Great Bleeding in a Child; by du Gard

Rupt. of the Mesentery ; by Swammerdam
Swimming-bladders in Fishes; by Ray ....
Incalescence of Quicksilver, &c. ; by B, R.
Structure of the Intestines ; by Dr. Cole . .

On Phosphorus; by C. A. Baldwin

Imitating Man and Hum. Calculi; by Garden

On making Cerusse; by Sir P. Vemati

A Monstrous Birth; by Dr. Morris

Structure of the Nose; by du Verney

A Child many Years within the Mother; by

M. Bayle

Disease in the Ovarium; by Dr. Sampson . .

VOL. n.

3 Leuwenhoeck, on the Teeth 433

67 On a Worm passed by Urine; by M. Milford 441

Anatomical Observations; by Tyson 443

69 Four Ureters in a Child; by Dr. Tyson. . . *. 450

71 English Green Copperas; by D. Cotwall . . 461

72 TheSalt WorksatDroitwich; by RasteU .. 463

75 On Malt making; by Sir R. Moray 469

82 A Dead Body mostly changed to Hair 490

90 Hair, Teeth, &c. within Bodies; by Tyson ibid

95 On the Plague ; by Dr. Alprunus 492

115 Preservation from Infection; by Dr. Dobr-

116 zensky jbi^j

123 On a Strange Birth; by A. P *. 493

141 The Structure of a Muscle; by Dr. C. . . . ibid

152 Anatomy of a Porpoise; by Dr. Tyson .... 500

154 Dr. Sampson, on Dissecting a Morbid Body 501

155 Strange Disease in a Patient j by Dr. Konig 510
158 Dissection of an Ostrich; by Dr. Brown . . 534
166 On a Strange Animal vomited; by Lister . , 539
169 Oh a Calculus in a Horse; by Dr. H. P. . . . 544
199 Lister, changing the Colour of the Chyle . . 55^
218 Anatomy of a Rattle Snake; by Tyson.... 561
267 Winder, on a Murrain in Switzerland .... 587

295 Plot, on Salt and Sand fi-om Brine 539

368 Lister, on a Case of Hydrophobia 6O8

382 Curious Case of a Bitch dissected 6l5

421 Anatomy of a Monstrous Pig 6l7

430 Lister, Colour, &c. of the Chyle 637

432 on an uncommon Birth 648

Maurice, on a Foetus in the Ovarium .... 658

435 Musgiave, on Cutting out the Caecum .... 66I

437 Anatomy of the Musk Hogj by Tyson. . . . QQs

b

CONTENTS.

Natural History — Botany, Mineralogy, Zoology, &c.

Page

On Kermes and Cochineal ; by Mr. Lister 7

On Vipers ; by Mr. Thomas Plott 8

Mr, Boyle, on some Shining Flesh 31

A strange kind of Mushroom; by Lister . . 33

On Veins in Plants; by Lister 34

A Strange Frost about Bristol "67

On Fixed Salts; by Von der Becke 54<

Dr. Grew, on the Nature of Snow ibid

Dr. Wallis, on a Freezing Rain 56

Management of the Cocoa Tree 59

On Stones for Building, &c ibid

Virginia, useful for Ship-building 60

Cultivation of Vines ; by Templer ibid

Motion of Urchin's Hearts; by the same . . 6l

Observations on Turkey ibid

Leuwenhoeck's Microscop. Observations . . 66

Cast-metal improved 68

Dr. Wallis, on the Veins in Plants 74

On Catching Carp; by Mr, Templer 78

Raising Fruit Trees ; by Mr. Lewis 79

A Bee-house used in Scotland 81

Mr. Boyle, on Ambergris 94

Figures to Leuwenhoeck's Experiments . . 95

Du Hamel, De Corpore Animato 115

On some Natural Curiosities Il6

A Subterraneous Fungus; by Lister I19

Trochitae and Entrochi; by the same 121

Icy Mountain at Berne, in Helvetia 123

Description of Nova Zembia 1 24

Volatile Salt from Vegetables; by Dr. Coxe ibid

Stones of a Gold-colour; by Dr. Johnston 125

Origin of Pearls; by M. Sandries 126'

Leuwenhoeck's Microscop. Observat 128

Observations and Experiments on Vitriol . . 133

On Salt and on Sheep ; by Dr. Beal ibid

On Vitriol, Sulphur, and Alum ibid

Directions for Tanning Leather 136

Further Remarks on Snails ; by Lister .... 138

Leuwenhoeck's Microscop. Observat 149

The same continued 151

The same again 166

On the Zirchnitzer Sea ; by Dr. Brown .... ] 70

Natural History Experiments; by Lister . . 179

Account of Iceland; by Biornon 187

Rural and Economical Inquiries 189

Astroites, or Star Stones; by Lister 200

The Air-bladders in Fishes; by A. 1 211

Poisonous Fishes in the Bahamas; by J. L. . 213
Extraord. Oranges and Lemons ; by P. Natus ibid

Morrison's New Universal Herbal 214

Plants, Trees, &c. to a great size ....... 219

Leuwenhoeck's Microscop. Observat 222

Mine-damps and Worms 224

Page
Observat. in Scotland ; by Sir G. Mackenzie 226
Observations at Barbadoes; by Dr. Towns 228

Damps in Mines ; by Mr. Jessop 244

Dr. Beal, on the Vinctum Britannicum. . . . 288

' on Shining Flesh 294

Account of Virginia ; by Glover 301

Texture of Trees, &c.; by Leuwenhoeck , . 312

On Rock-plants; by Mr. Beaumont 351

Lake of Mexico, and strange Rye 357

On Fire in a Coal-pit; by Dr. Hodgson. . . . 358

Agrostic Observations ; by Dr. Beale 374

Leuwenhoeck, on Animalcules, &c ibid

Bononian Stone; by Malpighi 3S2

Leuwenhoeck, on Animalcules, &c 383

Hortulan Observations; by Dr. Beale .... 384

Four kinds of Shining Substances 390

On Damps in Mines; by Mr. Moslyn .... 398
Leuwenhoeck, on the Brain, Muscles, &c. 401
On Diamond Mines; by the Earl Marshal. . 405
Hatching Chickens at Cairo; by J. Graves 413

On Barnacles; by Sir Rob. Moray 415

On tlie Hirta Isle; by the same 416

On the Camelion; by Dr. Goddard 418

On Iron Works; by H. Powle, Esq ibid

Culture of Saffron; by Mr. Howard 423

Tin Mines in Cornwall ; by Dr. Merret . . 424

Refining Gold; by Dr. Goddard 426

Red Snow at Genoa ; by Sarotti 432

On the Sorbus Pyriformis ; by Mr. Pitt. . . . 434
On Tempers by the Voice ; by Dr. Ent . . 441

Leuwenhoeck, de Natis e Semine 451

Art of Refining; by Dr. Merret 453

Antidiatriba ; by Dr. Geo. Ent 47 1

Leuwenhoeck, on the Animals in Semine . . 473
Fire Damps in Mines ; by J. Beaumont , . 474

Overflowing of Rivers in Germany 475

S. Lorenzini, on the Torpedo 485

Account of Okey-hole, &c.; by J. Beaumont 487
Leuwenhoeck's Microscop. Observat. ..... 507

• New Discoveries 520

Dr. Elsholt's Curious Experiments 522

Leuwenhoeck, on Muscles and Oysters . . 536

on Muscular Fibres 543

Southwell, on Pen-park Hole 551

Leuwenhoeck, on Animal Generation .... 580

Tyson, on the Lumbricus Latus 591

on the Lumbricus Teres 605

Pettus, on Refining of Metals 6I8

Leuwenhoeck, Structure of Wood ibid

Beaumont, on Rock-plants 647

Philosophical Experiments; by Dr. Slare . . 651
Leuwenhoeck, Generation of Frogs, &c. . . 66^!
Boyle, on Human Blood, its Spirit, &c. . . . 684

CONTENTS.

Mr

Chronology, Geography y Mathematics, Meclianics, Navigation, ^c.

Dr. Wallis's Answer to Lux Matheraatica.
■de Centre Gravit. Hyperbolae.

Page
11
12

Sluse, on drawing Tangents to Curves .... 38

Vibrations in Cycloids; by Lord Brouncker 64

Sluse, on Tangents to Curves 74

Tides about the Orcades ; by Sir R. Moray lOC'

Wallis, on a Right-line equal to a Curve . . 112

Lord Brouncker, on the same 113

Sir Chr. Wren, on the same 114

On the North-east Rout to India 171

On the North-west Rout to the same ibid

Dr. Wallis, on Diagonal Divisions 189

Huy gen's Portable Watches 199

Leibnitz's Portable Watches 203

On the North-east Passage 233

Math. Hist. Table; by Dr. Mangold 320

P«ge

An Ascending Clock ; by M. de Gennes . . 439
New Weaving Machine; by the same .... ibid
S{ieaking Trumpet improved ; by Conyers. . 445

Bemier's Way 6f Hying 476

Lana s Flying Ship 478

The English Atlas, vol. i 501

Infinitely-infinite Fractions ; by Wood .... 502

On Mill-sails, &c.; by Mr. Hooke 509

Dr. Pell's Idea of the Mathematics 527

Mersenne's Objections to it 530

Pell's Answer to Mersenne '532

Mersenne's Reply to the same 533

Descartes on the same ibid

Leibnitz, on the Quadrature of the Cir-
cle 547

Wallis, on the Numeral Characters 677

Miscellanies — Agriculture, Antiquities, Architecture, Grammar, History, Alusic,
Paintijig, Perspective, Sculpture, Travels, Voyages, ^c.

Sinclair's Delineating Machine 84

Culture by Sea-weed; by Dr. Dan. Coxe . . 206

Observations on former Transactions, Anon. 270

Vernon's Travels in Dalmatia, &c 284

Tavernier's Observations on Asia 343

the same continued 355

On Congo and Brasil ; by de Guattini .... 434

Dr. Lister, on Roman Urns, &c 518

On Tasman's Land ; by Rembrantse 542

Lister, on a Roman Monument 580

on Roman Walls 635

Observations on Constantinople; by T.Smith 664

Books, of which an Account is given in this Volume.

Archimedes's Arenarius ; by Wallis

Anthelme, Treatise on a Comet

Burnet, Thesaurus Medicinae Pract

Bohn, on the Properties of Wind

Boyle, Experiments on Air and Water ....

Brown, Travels in Hungary, &c

Boyle, Tracts on the Sea, &c

Bartholin, Acta Medica, &c

Boyle, on the Mechanical Hypothesis ....
Von der Becke, Exper. Circa. Nat. Rer. Prin,

Boccone, Icones et Descr. Rar. Plant

Bartholin, Selecta Geometrica

. de Natura Quest. Acad

de Anatome Practica, &c

Barba, Art of Metals

Boyle, Tracts

on the Resurrection

Borrichius, Hermetis Egyptiorum, &c. . . .

Barrow, Apollonius, Archimedes, &c

Bartholin, Acta Medica, &c

J. B. Epitome of Husbandry

Bohn, de Alcali et Acidi Insuflf.

282 Bameri, Prodromus Sennerti 237

524 Blondel, Cours d' Architecture 274

30 BuscbofF, &c. Two Medical Treatises .... 300

41 De Blegny, on the Venereal Disease 301

56 Boyle, Experiments, Notes, &c 320

71 Bartholin, de Peregrin. Medica, &c 321

103 Briggs, Ophthalmographia 354

105 Boyle, Opera Varia 360

133 Brown, Travels in Germany ibid

ibid Bartholin, Diaphragmatis Struct ibid

134 Bond, Longitude found 36l

153 W. B. Touchstone, for gold and silver, &c. 374

163 Biblioth. Coll. Paris Soc. Jesu 443

ibid Borelli, de Motu Animalum 499

168 Burnett, Theory of the Earth 515

183 Bernouilli, on Comets 546

192 Borelli, Opus Posthumum 577

207 Bohn, Epistola ad Langelottum 59 1

214 Bamer, de Spirit. Vini sine Acido ibid

ibid Brookhuysen, CEconom. Animal 6I8

ibid Cole, de Secretione Animali Cogit 153

232 De Chales, Cursus Mathematicus 184

b2

xa

CONTENTS.

Page

Cotton, on the Planter's Manual 222

Cook, England's Improvements 266

Du Clos, sur les Eaux Minerales 300

Cooke, on Forest Trees, &c 308

Charras, Pharmacopee Royale 343

Cary, Palaeologia Clironica 373

Cudworth, Intellectual System 422

Charras, Royal PharraacopcEia 43 1

Du Cange, Glossar, ad Scriptores, &c 443

Cospano, Museo di L. Legati ibid

Celli, Treatise on Phosphorus 515

Comets, a Treatise on 545

Drope, on Fruit Trees 7

Davide, Vini Rhenani 62

Diemerbroeck, Anatome Corporis Hum. . . 148

Drelincourt, de Tailler la Pierre, &c l64

Debes, on the Isles of Feroe. 245

Dassie, 1' Architecture Navale 395

Duncan, des Actions Animales 444

Dodart, Histoire des Plantes 484

Dublin Bills of Mortality 560

Eygel, Apologenia pro Urinis Hum 119

Ephemeridum Medico- Physicarum 1 27

Evelyn, on Navigation and Commerce .... 134

■' Discourse on Earths 245

Ephemer. Med. Phys. German 353

Fairfax, Bulk and Selvage of the World . . 119

Fortey, England's Interest, &c 127

Fratta, Prattica Minerale 517

Gormani, Homo ex Ovo 6

Glisson, de Natura Substantiae Energ 12

Guericke, Experimenta Nova 29

Le Grand, Historia Naturae 70

Grew, Phytological History 103

Le Grand, de Carentia Sensus, &c 203

Gentleman's Recreation, in 4 parts 246

Grew, Anatomy of the Trunks, &c 253

Goodall, College of Physicians vind 267

Gardener, the French 309

Glisson, de Ventriculo et Intestinis 343

Glaser, New Treatise of Chemistry 395

Godart, on Insects, by Lister 560

Grew, Anatomy of Plants 655

Hobbes, Lux Mathematica 6

Haret, Optique de Portraiture, &c ibid

Horrox, Opera Posthuma 12

Du Hamel, de Mente Humana 13

Huygens, Horologium Oscillatorum 79

Hobbes, Principia et Problemata 103

Hevelius, Machina Coelestis 119

Hooke, on the Earth's Motion 126

■ against the Machina Coelestis 174

Haynes, Prevention of Poverty 1 93

Hooke, on Helioscopes, &c 237

Du Hamel, de Consensu Vet. et Novae . . . 283

Hecatoste, Observ. Phys. Med 321

La Hire, Nouvelle Meth. en Geom 353

Pape
Henshaw, Aero Chalinos 379

Heidel, Trithemii Stegnog. vind 388

Hale, Origination of Mankind 411

Hobbes, Decameron Physiolog 431

Hooke, Lectures and Collections 437

Halley, Catal. Stellarum Austr 446

Hortus Indicus Malabaricus 590

— — — Idem, pars secunda ibid

Idem, pars tertia 59I

Kersey, Elements of Algebra 81

Logica, sive Ars Cogitandi 154

Lewis, Education of Youth 187

Lister, Hist. Animalium Angliae 436

Lagati, Museo Cospiano, &c 443

Lister, de Fontibus Medicatis 577

Malpighi, de Formatione Pulli in Ovo 13

Moreland, Two Arith, Instruments 71

Moore, Modern Fortification 80

Mengoli, Musica Speculativa 124

Minderer, Medicina Militaris 127

Moore, Mathematical Compendium ,. 134

Mayow, de Sale-nitro et Spir. Nit 142

MuUer, Africanische Landschaft 168

Munting, "Waare GEffining der Planten .... 192

Malpighi, Anatome Plantarum 229

More, Remarks on some Treatises 275

Memoires pour servir a I'Hist 289

Mercator, Instit. Astron 299

Menard, Nouvelle Science des Temps 369

Music, Philos. Essay on 379

Mariotte, Traite de la Percussion 388

Muller, de Rebus Sinicis 412

Moxon, Mechanic Exercises 431

Malpighi, Anatome Plantarum 483

Olhoff, Excerpta ex Literis, &c 658

Prose de Signori Academici di Bolog 34

Pardies, a faire les Quadraus 42

Poemat. Cantu et Viribus Rythmi 62

Pardies, la Statique 70

Petty, Use of Duplicate Proportion 172

Perrault, Architecture de Vitruve 202

Piatt, the Garden of Eden 210

R. P. Bathoniensium et Aquisgr 284

Prestet, Elemens des Mathematiques 307

Parler, de 1' Art de 308

Pechlin, de Aeris et Aliment. . . , 321

Pharmacopoeia Col. Regal. Lond 378

Plott, Nat. Hist, of Oxfordshire 394

Pigot, Earthquake at Oxford 658

Ray, Travels in Flanders, Germany, &c. . . 50

Radi, Esperienze di diverse Cose Nat 58

Regnel, True English Interest 132

De Rae, Clavis Philos. Naturalis 369

Ray, Catal. Plantarum Angliae 378

Rossetti, on the late Comet 524

Rudbeck, Atlantica 525

ten Rhyne, Tractatus 631

CONTENTS.

Xtll

Page

ScheiFer, Lapponia 132

Smith, England's Improvement ibid

on the same 133

Stevenson, the Royal Almanack I69

Sherburne, Sphere of Manilius 185

R. S. Avona, on Navigable Rivers 186

Sympson, Zymologia Chemica 232

Stevenson, Royal Almanack 257

Sturm, Collegium Experimentale 265

Sydenham, Observationes Med 283

Sammes, Britannia Antiq 292

Shirley, Curios, of Scurvy Grass 300

Stevenson, Royal Almanack 36 1

Simpson, Philos. Dialogues 395

Sigisin, Curious Distillery 412

Sanctorius, Medicina Statica ibid

Sturm, Observat. Magnet. Variat 560

Sydenham, Tract, de Podagra, &c 658

Spon, Recherches Curieuses 6ll

Torricellian Experiments 134

Page

Tavemier, Six Voyage* 423

Traphane, tlie Healtli at Jamaica 446

Voyages, divers Curieux 34

Varenius, Geographia Generalis 50

Du Vemey, de I'Organe de I'Ouie 643

Vision, by Perrault and Mariotte 644

Uova de Chiocciole, &c 611

Willis, Pharmaceutice Rationalis 118

Wedelius, de Sale Volatile Plantar 124

Willughbey, Omithologia . . 252

Willis, Pharmaceutice Rationalis 265

Wallis, Archimedes Arenarius 282

J. W. Vinetum Britannicum 284

Willins, de Morbis Castrensibus 412

J. W. Systema Horticulturae 413

Wallis, Exercitationes tres 435

, Ptolemaei Harmonic 559

Yarranton, England's Improvement 369

Zimmerman, Cometa-scopia 646

Biographical Notices of the following Authors in this Volume.

Page Page

Moore, Sir J 80 Romer 397

Moray, Sir R 106 ten Rhyne 631

Mersenne 530

Musgrave 66I Sennert 237

Sturm 265

Neil 112 Sanctorius 412

Petty, Sir Wm... 172 Tulpius 152

Perrault 202 Tavemier 423

Paracelsus 206 Tyson 448

Papin 239

Prestet 307 Varenius 50

Pechlin 321 Du Vemey 432

Plott 394

PeU 527 Wiseman 71

Ptolemy 559

Page

Page

Aldrovaudus .

... 442
... 274

Ent

. . 471

Blondel

Guericke

.. 29

Bond

... 361

Glaser

.. 395

Baldwin

... 368

Gtjddard

.. 426

Bayle .•

. .. 435

Burnet

... 515

Horrox

.. 12

Bemouilli . . .

... 546

Van Helmont

.. 155

Halley

.. 326

De Chales . . .

... 184

La Hire

.. 353

Conringius . . .

...206

Hale

.. 411

Cudworth . . .

... 422

Du Cange . . .

... 443

Kepler

.. 130

Kunckel ,

.. 489

Diemerbroeck

... 148

Dodart

... 484

Leuwenhoeck .

.. 66

XIV CONTENTS.

REFERENCES TO THE PLATES IN VOLUME IL

Plate I, Fig. I, p. 38 j II, 40 j III, IV, V, 41 ; VI, 44.

II, ....i;.. 64 J 11,845 III, 86} IV, V, VI, 81 J VII, VIII, IX, 95j X to XVI,

inclusive, ^6. ^

III, .... I, II, III, IV, p. 97; V, VI, 99', VII, 100 j VIII, 101 ; IX, 102.
IV, .... I, II, p. 1075 III. IV. 108; V, VI, 109 3 VII, IIO5 VIII, 111; IX, 112.

, . ,, V, I to XXXVII, inclusive, p. 122, 123.

.... VI, I, II, III, p. 130; IV, V, VI, 137; Snails, fig. I to XXVII, inclu. pp. 140, 141.

VII, .... I, II, III, IV, 180; V, 181, VI, 189; VII, 194 ; VIII, IX, 196.
.... VIII, .... I to XVII, 201 ; XVIII, XX, 199; XIX, 203.
. . . . IX, .... I, II, 215; III, 216; IV, 225; V, 277; VI, 310; VII, 311 ; VIII, IX, X, 314;

XI, 316.

X, .... I, p. 316; II, 317; III, 318; IV, 319; V, 328; VI, 323; VII, 329; VIII, 330.

XI, ....I,.. 333; II, III, 337; IV, 346; V, VI, 348; VII, VIII, 380; IX, X, XI^

381; XII, 396; XIII, 397.

. . . . XII, .... I, p. 414; II, III, 415; IV, V, 439; VI, 445; VII, VIII, 446.

XIII, .... I, II, III, p. 450 ; IV, 451 ; V to XII, inclusive, 452 ; XII to XIX, 582 to 584.

. . . . XIV, .... I, p. 476; II, 494; III, IV, 495; V, 498 ; VI to VIII, 500.

XV, . . . . I, . . 500; II, 547; III, 539; IV, 540; V, 551; VI, 539.

. . . . XVI, . . . . I, . . 553; II, 5S9.

XVII, I to XII, inclusive, p. 56l to 576.

. . . . XVIII, .... I to VI, p. 585; VII to XI, inclusive, 648, 649; XII, 66S.; XIII, 666.

XIX, I to IX, p. 604; X to XIII, inclusive, 6O8 .

. . . . XX, I to XX, inclusive, p. 6I8 to 624.

XXI, .... I to LV, p. 647, 648.

. . . . XXII, .... I to IX, p. 675, 676 ; X, 678.

CONTENTS.

XXI

REFERENCES TO THE PLATES IN VOLUME L

Plate I, Fig. I, p. 12j II, 28j III, 28; IV, 29; V, 72; VI, 72; VII, VIII, 75.
II, .. I, .. 80; II, 81; III, IV, 84.
. Ill, .. I, .. 92; II, III,91j IV, 95; V, 106.
. IV, .. I, . . 139; II, III, 154; IV, V, VI, 155; VII, VIII, IX,' 157.

V, . . I, II, p. 170.
. VI, .. I, II, III, IV, V, p. 195.

. VII, . . I, II, III, IV, p. 233; V, 240; VI, 255; VII, 257; VIII, 273; IX, X, XI, 299;
Xir, XIII, 311.
... VIII, .. I, p. 249; II, 250; III, IV, 302; V, 358.
... IX, .. I, .. 325; 11,326; 111,327; IV, 337; V, 353; VI, 382; VII, 396.

X> . . I, . . 391 ; II, 392; III, 394; IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, 401.
... XI, . . I, . . 422; II, III, 424; IV, 425 ; V, 427-

... XII, .. I, .. 457; 11,111,458; IV, 459; V, 460; VI,46l; VH, VIII, 462.
... XIII, . . I, . . 531 ; II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, 535 ; VIII, 536; IX, 548; X, XI, XII, Xin,

XIV, XV, 563.
... XrV, . . I, . . 606; II, 608; III, 622; IV, V, VI, 624; VII, 626; VUI, IX, X, XI, 628^1

XII, 659; XIII, 683; XIV, 687.
... XV, .. I, .. 691; II, III, 692; IV, 696', V, 711} VI, 7l5j VII, 728^ VIII, 730i

IX, 739; X, 741.
, . . . XVI, . . I, II, III, IV, V, p. 697 i VI, VII, VIII, 699i IX, 700.

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