where he attended 6 or 7 weeks, but without receiving any benefit. Somebody then told him, his complaint was owing to the scurvy, (to which he had been subject) and he accordingly applied himself to several persons, who advertise remedies for curing that distemper, and among the rest, to Mr. Ward, of whom he had some pills; and once, by mistake, took 2 of them for a dose, which operated so violently, that the family imagined he could not survive it however he still continued in the same condition. And now thinking that if he was admitted an in-patient at the hospital, he should be more likely to obtain a cure, he got himself admitted, and was there about 2 months longer; at the end of which time he was discharged, but in no better condition than before.

About a fortnight after this, and 12 months from the beginning of his disorder, viz. August 10, 1760, the person who was foreman to Mr. Newman, desired leave to write to Mr. M. for his opinion of the case; which being very readily granted, he desired him by letter, to come and see a young man, who, as he expressed it "had poisoned his hands with brass and oil of vitriol."

Mr. M. found him with his hands quite stiff, and utterly incapable of any business whatever; and having already had so much advice, and taken so many medicines, he concluded his disorder was incurable, and that he should entirely lose the use of his hands, the skin on the palms of them (the right hand rather the worst of the 2) having the exact appearance of parchment, full of chaps; and when he endeavoured by force to straighten the fingers, the blood started from every joint of them.

After hearing the best account he could get of the cause of his complaint, he imagined that as the disease had been contracted by his frequently dipping his hands into a violently acid liquor, the most probable method of relieving him would be by the application of an emollient liniment, mixed with an alkaline lixivium. For this purpose he ordered as follows: R Ol. olivar. 3iv. Lixivii salis alkalin. fix. 3ii. M. F. linimentum. With this he was ordered to anoint his hands frequently, especially going to bed; and to prevent the liniment being too soon rubbed off, constantly to wear a pair of gloves.

About 4 days after Mr. M. found the skin a little softened, and he could extend the fingers with less pain than before; and no blood issued on endeavouring to move them. This would have encouraged him to have continued the use of the same liniment; but as he complained much of its making his hands smart every time he used it, (and indeed this was the first application among the many he had tried that ever gave him any uneasiness) he concluded that the addition of some yolk of egg might lessen the acrimony of the alkaline salt, without at all abating the efficacy of the liniment: he therefore composed the liniment thus: B Ol. olivar. iv. Lixivii salis alk. fix. 3ii. Vitel. ovor. No ii. f. linimentum; to be used as before. This mixture not giving him so much pain as the former, he

had used it all in 3 days; and then coming to him for more, he found his hands still continue to mend; the skin that had grown hard scaling off, and a new flexible one appearing underneath; the chaps were many of them healed; and he began to have some use of his fingers. Encouraged by this success, he continued the use of the last prescribed liniment; and as from his not having had the proper use of his fingers for so long a time, their joints in a great degree lost their motion, he advised him alternately to clench his fist, and to stretch out his fingers many times a day.

The disorder had been so long on him, and had taken so deep root, that though he began very sensibly to amend from the first application of the liniment, yet it was full 2 months before he thought it advisable to leave off the use of it; and then to prevent a relapse he gave him the following ointment: R Axung. porcin. ii. Vitel. ovi. Ol. lavend. gt. v. f. unguentum. with orders to anoint his hands with it every night going to bed. This ointment he had continued to use about a month; and was then perfectly restored to the use of his hands, and began again to work at his business. During this course of anointing he took no internal medicines, except 3 doses of purging physic.

LXXXV. A Further Account of some Experiments made on the Bovey Coal. By Dr. Miller. p. 941.

Salt of hartshorn mixed with the phlegm that distilled first from the Bovey coal produced no ebullition nor air bubbles; but when mixed with the watery liquor, which arose with the thick oil in the latter part of the process, after it had stood some weeks in a glass bottle, close stopped, and was become perfectly fine, caused a very considerable ebullition, and the mixture immediately became foul and red. In some days after it got much thicker, and had the colour of tar. Its surface was covered with a bituminous pellicle, as were the sides and bottom of the glass. Eighteen grains of salt of hartshorn were not more than sufficient to saturate the acid salts contained in an ounce of the liquor, which was but very little sour to the taste.

Spirit of nitre dropped into this bituminous liquor, soon after it was distilled, and before it had deposited the oily particles (which rendered it cloudy) changed its colour to a deep brown; but had not that effect after the liquor was become transparent.

The black gritty powder, which remained after the former process, was put into a coated retort, and distilled by a naked fire; so that the whole body of the retort continued red-hot for more than 2 hours. This brought over to the reeeiver near an oz. of a watery bituminous liquor, rather stronger than that which distilled with a sand heat, and a few drops only of a thick bituminous matter, which stuck to that part of the receiver on which they fell. The neck of the

retort was thinly incrusted with something that resembled a saline concrete; but was found to be only bituminous matter. In the bottom of the retort there remained a very black gritty powder. Of this powder, one ounce was put into a crucible, set in a melting furnace, and kept in a pretty strong fire for an hour. The powder after it was cold appeared on the surface to be of a pale reddish colour; but was not in the least altered underneath. It lost however in weight near 3 drs. Some of the black powder taken cut of the crucible, and thrown upon a red-hot iron, burnt without flame; but emitted plentifully a heavy black smoke. Two ounces of the black powder, which had been twice distilled, were set on a clear fire in an iron ladle, and continually stirred from the time that the ladle grew red-hot, and the matter began to emit a heavy black stinking smoke, till no more smoke arose from it. The calcined matter remaining in the ladle weighed 2 scruples, and seemed to be a kind of bole earth. This earth was evaporated in 2 ounces of rain water to one ounce, which some days after was poured off clean from the sediment. This water had not the least saline taste, nor did it give any sign of effervescence when spirit of nitre was dropped into it. From the preceding experiments it appears that the substance called fossilwood consists, for the most part of water, and that a considerable quantity of this principle is separated from it by a gentle heat; which seems to be the reason why such fossil-wood, on being exposed to the sun and air, or kept in a dry place, soon becomes full of superficial cracks, resembling a piece of timber, which by lying long on the ground in the open air, has begun to decay: that though the fossil-wood does not, like amber or pit-coal, yield by distillation a light oil floating on its phlegm, and a volatile acid salt in a concrete form, yet that a light oil and a volatile acid salt, in a considerable quantity, are intimately mixed with the water which distils from it: that this fossil-wood differs in several particulars from all wood belonging to the vegetable kingdom, which has been examined by fire after the same manner.

1st, Its powder burnt in a close vessel, and kept red-hot for a much longer time than is sufficient to reduce the like quantity of vegetable charcoal, emits (when sprinkled on a red-hot iron) a thick heavy black smoke. 2dly, The same powder, burnt as before mentioned, does not easily take fire, nor burn of itself, nor consume to ashes, even when exposed in an open crucible to a strong fire, and kept in it ignited, and almost white for a considerable time. 3dly, The matter left by this powder, after its phlogistic principle has been separated from it by time and air, contains no alkaline salt, and appears to be an astringent mineral earth; whereas charcoal easily takes fire, burns freely without smoke, and continues burning till it consumes to an ash; which consists of an alkaline salt, and a pure earth fit for making cuppels, and by these marks is sufficiently distinguished from all mineral substances. 3 U

VOL. XI.

LXXXVI. On the Aberration of Light Refracted at Spherical Surfaces and Lenses. By S. Klingenstiern of Stockholm. p. 944.

Too much complicated with intricate symbols to be of any real and practical

use.

END OF THE FIFTY-FIRST VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL.

1

I. On the Use of Furze in Fencing the Banks of Rivers. By the Rev. David Wark. p. 1. vol. 52.

Mr. W. and several of his acquaintances having experienced, on many ordinary. occasions, the usefulness of furze bushes in stopping water, in pursuing the scheme, he found that locks aud damheads might be raised, at one 10th of the ordinary expence, by the help of furze, as a very thin perpendicular wall of stone and lime, or one of deal boards, 2 inches thick, is the principal part of the expence. Close to this wall, on the other side, is a mound of furze intermixed with gravel, and along the top of the wall a strong tree, equal with the highest part of the mound. It is plain that this wall cannot be hurt by the weight of the water or force of the current, as it is defended by the contiguous mound, which is 6 or 7 yards broad; nor can the pressure of the mud and gravel make it give way, as their weight is suspended by the interweavings of the furze. If therefore the tree on the top of the wall can be made to keep its place, the whole is firm.

It is well known that the sea-dykes in Holland are made with faggots of any sort of brush-wood; and it must appear to any one who examines the net-work formed by the crossings of the branches and prickles of furze, that it is far more effectual for this purpose, both as it detains the collected earth, and is much inore cheaply procured than faggots.

II. Of a Remarkable Halo.

By Tho. Barker, Esq. p. 3.

This halo Mr. B. observed May 20, 1737, a quarter before eleven in the morning, and which continued half an hour, in a clear hot sky.

III. Of a Meteor seen in New England, and of a Whirlwind felt in that Country. By Mr. John Winthrop, Prof. of Phil. at Cambridge in New England. p. 6. The southern parts of the province were greatly alarmed on Thursday the 10th of May last, about 35m after 9 in the morning by a meteor. The weather being then fair and calm, the people at Bridgewater, and the towns near it, about 25 miles south from hence, were surprized with a noise, like the report of a cannon,

or volley of small arms, which seemed to come from the west. This report was followed by a rumbling noise, which most took for the roar of an earthquake; and when it had lasted about a minute, there was another explosion like that of a cannon; and about as long after a third; the roaring noise in the mean time increasing, so as to fill the air all around. After this third explosion, the noise gradually abated, seeming to go off toward the south-east; having lasted in the whole, as was judged, about 5m. These noises were heard as far north as Roxbury and Boston: east, a league beyond Cape Cod; south, at Martha's Vineyard and Rhode Island; and west at Providence and Mendon; filling a circle of about 80 miles in diameter, the centre of which was at Bridgewater or near it.

The meteor which produced these noises, was not seen near the centre of this circle, but only near the circumference. A creditable person at Roxbury, a town adjoining on Boston, informed Mr. W. that about 10 o'clock that morning he saw in the air a ball of fire, about 4 or 5 inches in diameter, drawing a train of light after it. The ball was of a white brightness, exceeding that of the sun. Though the sun then shone out clear, this fire-ball was bright enough to cast a shade, by which he first perceived it in the south-east, passing below the sun. For he was standing with his back toward that and the sun; but this shade put him on turning round to discover what might be the cause of it. He says the ball moved parallel to the horizon from the north-east toward the south-west, not above half so fast as shooting stars generally do, and disappeared while he was looking on it; and that about 4 or 5m after he heard a kind of rumbling noise, somewhat like that of an earthquake; which was also heard by many others in Roxbury. From a vessel about a league south-west from Cape Cod, and from Martha's Vineyard, he received like accounts of a bright ball in the heavens, sufficient to ascertain the reality of the meteor, but not to determine its height and course.

Mr. W. also mentions one of the most extraordinary whirlwinds ever known in that country. The morning of July 10 at Cambridge was fair and hot, with a brisk gale at south-west. The afternoon was cloudy. About 5 it began to rain, and thundered once. At Leicester, 40 miles westward, about 5 o'clock the sky looked strangely; clouds from the south-west and north-west seemed to rush together very swiftly, and immediately on their meeting commenced a circular motion; presently after which a terrible noise was heard. The whirlwind passed along from south-west to north-west. Its first effects were discernible on a hill, where several trees were thrown down at considerable distances from each other. In this manner it proceeded the distance of 6 miles with the most destructive violence, tearing up and scattering about the trees, stones, fences, and every thing else in its way, forming a continued lane of ruins, of a few rods wide.

It met with only one dwelling house in its course, that of one David Lynde,