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⚫dium, for the fame ten years, from 1743 to 1753 inclusive, by the number 4935.

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From which, by the way, we may fee, as this difference ⚫ between the births and baptifms must be occafioned by diffen་ ters, that the number of fuch, of all denominations, both proteftant, and popifh, with the Jews, do not make above one fourth of the whole of the people within the bills of mortality; and confequently that the proteftant diffenters, exclufive of Quakers and Jews, are not above an eighth part of the whole. And we may alfo obferve, that as the difference between the births, 19561, and burials, 24867, is 5306, there must be a conftant fupply, yearly, of at least 5000 ftrangers, to keep up the people within the bills, to their • prefent number: and the births are to the dead, yearly, about four to five.

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< Now, from the births found, 19561, and the numbers of the dead in the different periods known by our bills, it will be eafy to form a table of the decrements of life; because the dead in the intermediate years may be found by what has been faid above. And accordingly I have computed_the following, which is conftructed from the London and Breflau bills together; which I think is a furer method of computing for us at London, than from either of them alone. The first part, to the 21ft year, is done from our bills, and the other part from the Breflau; but it is formed in fuch a manner, that it goes on, as if from the bills of one place only. For after the age of twenty it is continued by propor< tion, by making the dead at London in the decennial periods, to have the fame ratio to one another, as the dead at Breflau. It fupposes one thousand perfons born in one year, and fhews the annual decrease of them by death till eighty-feven years of age, which may be confidered as the utmost period of life. The intermediate numbers marked d, fhew the dead ⚫ in each year. The ufe of this table is well known to all who can compute the value of annuities for lives.

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The above table having been, at first, erroneoufly printed*, and fince haftily retailed with all its errors, tho' fome of them could not well have escaped a critical reader, induced us to believe the infertion of it, perfectly correct, would not be unpleafing. Hence the preceding calculation became the more neceffary, for the readier understanding of the table: which we the rather mention as an apology for having allowed fo much room to this article.

*The Society have ordered the leaf to be re-printed, with the neceffary corrections, with which the poffeffors of this volume may be fupplied by the publisher.

Art. 29. Some account of a Sheep Shewed alive to the Royal Society, in November 1754, having a monstrous born growing from his throat; the stuffed skin of which, with the horn, in fitu, is now in the Museum of the Society. By James Parfons, M. D. and F. R. S.

This preternatural horn measured two feet feven inches on its convex, or anterior furface, and two feet, one inch, on the concave fide; its greateft circumference, two feet, two inches; middle circumference, one foot, fix inches; and near the apex, one foot; and weighed fixteen pounds, averdupoife. But what was ftill more furprifing, upon opening the sheep, there was found, in the top of the horn, next the throat, which is hollow half way down, a skull, of a contracted round form, with blood-veffels running upon it, and a bag filled with grumous blood, among which was a • fubftance like a fheep's liver and lungs, and a perfect found kidney, like that of a frefh loin of mutton.'

Art. 30. In this article Monf. Daviel, Confulting Surgeon in ordinary, and Oculift to the French King, fhews, that the cancers of the eye lids, nofe, great angle of the eye, and its neighbouring parts, called the noli me tangere (b), deemed hitherto incurable, both by antients and moderns, are as curable as other diftempers.

Mr. Daviel lays it down as a rule, that thofe cancerous tumours have their feat in the Periofteum and Perichondrium, from whence they fometimes fhoot into the bones, &c. themfelves; and afferts, that unless the difeafed membranes, &c. are removed by total excifion, the diforder regenerates, which cauftics only irritate. This theory is backed by ten instances of its fuccefs.

Art. 32. Some Obfervations upon an American Wafp's Neft, fhewn to the Royal Society. By Mr. Ifrael Mauduit, F. R.S.

In the memoirs of the Royal Academy of Paris, for the year 1730, page 243, Paris edition, M. Reaumur has given a very curious defeription of one of thefe nefts. The outfide of the neft is a kind of paper, composed of the fibres of wood in its firft ftage of decay; when, by having been long expofed, in the air, to the action of the fun and rain, its external parts begin to feparate, and give thefe infects an opportunity to tear off certain fmaller filaments, which are then

(b) There is an impropriety in this term, as furgeons do not call thofe tumours noli me tangere till they are in their ulcered and preading ftate, which none of M. Daviel's cafes were.

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loofened, and which they collect together into a little ball; and having moistened it into a kind of pafte, spread it out with their talons and four feet, into its prefent form. These nefts are fufpended on the lower kinds of trees, in the thickeft parts of the American woods. The figure is that of a conoid, or accumulated oval: its longeft diameter is twenty inches, the 'fhorter, near the bafe, is twelve.

It is perforated on both fides, for the inhabitants to enter or go out at.' Mr. Reaumur adds, that the wafps always enter at one hole, and come out at the other; and tho' each hole will admit but one wasp at a time, yet by this regulation their motion is never retarded.

Art. 33. An Extract of a Letter written by the Magiftrates of the City of Mafcali, in Sicily, and fent from their public office to Naples, concerning a late eruption of Mount Etna. Tranflated from the Italian.

On Sunday the 9th of March 1755, about noon, Mount Etna began to caft from its mouth a great quantity of flame and fmoke, with a moft horrible noife. At four of the clock of the fame day, the air became totally dark, and covered " with black clouds; and at fix, a fhower of ftones, each of which weighed about three ounces, began to fall, not only all over the city of Mafcali, and its territory, but all over the neighbourhood. This fhower continued till a quarter after seven; fo that by the darkness of the air, the fall of • ftones, and the horrible eructations of the mountain, the day of judgment seemed to fome to be at hand. After the • ftones had ceased falling, there fucceeded a fhower of black fand, which continued all the remainder of the night. The next morning, which was Monday, at eight o'clock, there fprung from the bottom of the mountain, as it were, a river of water; which, in the space of half a quarter of an hour, not only overflowed, to a confiderable diftance, the rugged land that is near the foot of the hill, but upon the water's fuddenly going off, levelled all the roughness and inequalities of the furface, and made the whole a large plain of fand. A country fellow, who was prefent at fo ftrange a fight, had the curiofity to touch this water, and thereby fcalded the ends of his fingers. The ftones and fand, which • remain wherever the inundation of the water reached, differ ⚫ in nothing from the ftones and fand of the fea, and have < even the fame faltnefs. This account, however fabulous it appears, is moft exactly true. After the water had done flowing, there fprung from the fame opening a fmall ftream

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<of fire, which lafted for twenty-four hours. On Tuesday, about a mile below this opening, there arofe another ftream of fire, which being in breadth about four hundred feet, like a river began to overflow the adjoining fields, and actually • continues with the fame courfe, having extended itself about two miles, and feeming to threaten the neighbourhood. Art. 34. Some account of the Charr-fil, as found in NorthWales. In a letter from the Rev. Mr. Farrington, of Dinas, near Caernarvon, to Mr. Thomas Gollinfon, of London. Communicated by Mr. Peter Collinfon, F. R. S.

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Mr. Farrington tells, that the charr is called in Welch, torgoch, a compound of tor, the lower part of the belly, and goch, red; in English, red-belly and that it greatly resembles the trout, but is much more elegant and delicate. • They appear to us,' fays Mr. Farrington, but at one feason of • the year, about the winter folftice: their stay is but of fhort continuance, as if an act of neceffity, and they were in hafte to be gone to fome more remote and private habitations. Three lakes, or large pools, at the foot of Snowden, afford being and fubfiftence to this remarkable finny race.They never wander far from the verge of thefe lakes, or the mouths of the rivers iffuing from them; but traverse from one end to the other, and from 'fhore to fhore indifferently, or perchance as the wind fits, in great bodies; fo that it is a common thing to take in one net, twenty or thirty dozen at a night in this place; and not above ten or a dozen fish in all at any other. Thus in winter frofts and rigours, they fport and play near the margins of the flood, and probably depofit their fpawn, and continue their kind; but in the fummer heats, they keep to the deep and center of water abounding in mud and large ftones, as the fhoaler parts do with gravel.' Mr. Farrington adds, the whole number of the charrs annually taken in the two pools of Llanberris, does not amount to an hundred dozen.

Art. 35. A method proposed to restore the hearing, when injured from an obftruction of the Tuba Eustachiana. By Mr. Jonathan Wathen, Surgeon.

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This is done by injection. Mr. Wathen gives fome inftances of its falutary effects. He acknowleges, in a note, that he had the firft hint of this method from Mr. Douglas, the Surgeon; and we could have wifhed, that Mr. Douglas, himself, had communicated it to the Society; Mr. Wathen's anatomy of the parts being far from accurate; nor has he afcertained.

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