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a large quantity of water; provided that the water contain pure er atmospherical air: the air contained in the water gradually attracting the phlogifton of the metallic falt, and consequently reducing the latter to the ftate of a calx. This obfervation, which may be extended to various other fubftances, naturally accounts for the dephlogistication of the vitriols, when diffolved in a large quantity of water, even in close vials: especially as it is found that no decompofition of the vitriols is obferved, if the water has previously been deprived of its air *.

Article 7. Experimenta quædam novum Acidum Animale spectantia: Auctore F. L. F. Crellio, M. D. &c.

The new animal acid which is the subject of this Article was difcovered fome years ago by M. de Segner; who procured it from beef fuet diftilled in a glass retort. From the different results of the prefent Author's reiterated diftillations, rectifications, &c. it appears that two pounds of this fubftance contain 14 ounces of pure oil, 7 ounces and 2 fcruples of acid, and 10 ounces 6 drams and a fcruple of coal.

We must refer the chemical Reader to the Article itfelf for the account of the particular experiments which the Author made on the oil, as well as on the acid; which laft he combined with fixed and volatile alcalis, calcareous earth, magnefia, and earth of alum. It would not act upon filiceous earth. Speaking of a particular method of procuring it in a concentrated state, he obferves, that the acid thus concentrated poffeffed the fingular property of, fingly, diffolving leaf gold; and proposes to treat hereafter more particularly on this fubject, and on the action of this acid on metals.

We have already [M. R. Appendix to our laft volume, pag. 508] given our Readers a general account of the process of M. Scheele (which is here however afcribed to M. Gahn) of procuring the phosphorus of urine from bones. The present Author, in the courfe of his experiments, detected the prefence of the phosphoric acid in beef fuet. From 2 ounces of its coal, reduced by calcination to 3 drachms, he procured by folution in water, and evaporation, 41 grains of a falt of a particular tafte. To this falt, diffolved in water, he added a few drops of vitriolic acid; and then proceeding nearly in the fame manner as when the phofphoric acid is procured from bones, he had the pleasure of obferving the phofphoric light, which lafted above an hour, at the neck of the retort. But the fmall quantity of matter on which he operated prevented him from obtaining any folid phofphorus.

Bergman. Opufcul. Phyfic. & Chemic. Tom. I. pag. 105.

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MEDICINE.

Article 8. Account of a Woman who had the Small Pox during Pregnancy, and who feemed to have communicated the fame Difeafe to the Foetus: By John Hunter, Efq; F. R. S.

A perfon who fuppofed herself to be in the fixth month of her pregnancy, was feized with the fmall pox on the 8th of December; and was delivered of a dead child on the 31ft of the fame month. An eruption was observed over its whole body, which refembled the small-pox; and feveral of the puftules were filled with matter. This cafe leads the Author into a variety of dif cuffions relative to the fubject, which will not eafily admit abridgment.

Article 13.

A new Method of treating the Fiftula Lachrymalis; By Mr. William Blizard, Surgeon, F. A. S.

This method appears to be equally fimple and ingenious, and to be attended with little pain and no danger. Its efficacy has been experienced by the inventor, who principally recommends it in recent obftructions in the nafal duct. These obftructions are proposed to be removed by the weight and preffure of a column of mercury, poured into a glass tube, to which is cemented a fine steel pipe, the extremity of which is introduced into one of the puncta lachrymalia.

Article 11. Memoria fopra il Veleno Americans, &c.; An Essay on the American Poifon called Ticunas: By the Abbé Fontana. With a Tranflation.

We cannot, without both feeling and communicating pain, dwell long on thefe cruel experiments made with the American and other poisons applied, in various modes of torture, to rabbits, pigeons, and other animals. Many of the qualities of the American poison were made known to the Public by M. de la Condamine. The molt merciful of all the prefent Author's trials is the following; which we felect for that reafon, ftill more than for its fingularity, and for the medical reafonings deduced from it.

On opening the jugular vein of a rabbit, and injecting a `quarter of a drop, by eftimation, of the American poifon, firft diffolved in, and then diluted with water; the animal fell down dead, before the poifon could be fuppofed to have reached the heart; and indeed as fudenly as if it had been ftruck by lightning. The Author does not believe that half a drop of the diluted liquor in the fyringe had been injected, when the rabbit fell motionless and dead.

On applying the very fame poison to nerves laid bare, no senfible diforder was produced in the economy of the animal.. By death taking place immediately,' fays the Author, on introducing the poifon into the blood, we may be induced to fufpect, that there exifts in that fluid a very active, fubtle, and

volatile

volatile principle, which eludes the acuteft fight, and even the microscope itself. This principle may, on this hypothefis, appear neceffary to life; and against this principle the poison may be fuppofed chiefly to direct its operation.'

The Author's deductions from thefe and various other trials fuggeft to him the following obfervations. Before my experiments, no person would have doubted but that the action of the American poifon was immediately on the nerves. All the external figns declared it to be fo. Thefe figns then are equivocal, and they are falfely' [erroneoufly] adopted by phyficians for the certain proofs that a difeafe is purely nervous. All these fymptoms may exift without the nerves being in the leaft affected the alteration of the blood alone is fufficient to produce them in a moment. The principal phyficians have attributed the difeafe produced by the poifon of the viper, and by the American poifon, to an alteration in the nerves: it belongs to them now to examine whether other difeafes, fuppofed generally to be nervous, be not rather difeafes of the fluids, than* [or] difeafes of the blood. The fufpicion is great, the figns equivocal; the principle is fhewn not to be general. I would not here affert, that no disorder could ever be derived from the nerves; this would be running into one extreme in order to avoid another. There is no doubt but that many diseases are nervous in their origin, and that many others become fo from diforders which have began in other parts, and thofe merely fluid. The illneffes. which arife from mental uneafinefs fhew us the power of the nerves on living bodies. But all this does not prove, that all the diseases attributed to the nerves are nervous; and that the ordinary figns of this diforder are not equivocal. And it is certain' that the poifons we have examined have no immediate action on the nerves, as has been commonly believed hitherto.'

Some experiments follow, which were made by the Author with laurel water; which was neither found to act on the blood, or the nerves and yet proved mortal, and that too in an inftant, when introduced into the ftomach by the mouth.

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLE S. Article 4. An Account of an Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which happened in August 1779: By Sir William Hamilton, K. B. F. R. S.

In this Article, this intelligent and well-informed hiftorian of Mount Vefuvius, relates fome of the moft ftriking phenomena which attended the laft violent eruption of that mountain; after having paid fifty-eight formal vifits to its crater, and having

* Malattie dei fiuidi, malattie del fangue.-The fenfe is here greatly altered from its true meaning by the Translator.

been

been four times as often on parts of the mountain, without climbing to its fummit.'

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After fome previous eruptions, the phenomena of which are here described, that of the 8th of Auguft is particularly related; which the Author, at Paufilipo, in company with feveral of his countrymen, obferved with good telescopes; by means of which they could diftinguish what paffed in the crater of the mountain, as well as if they had been actually feated on the fummit of the volcano. In an inftant,' fays the Author, a fountain of liquid tranfparent fire began to rife, and, gradually increasing, arrived at fo amazing a height as to ftrike every one who beheld it with the most awful aftonishment. I fhall fcarce be credited,' he adds, when I affirm, that the height of this flupendous column of fire could not be less than three times that of Veluvius itself,' which is elevated near 3700 feet above the level of the fea.

• Puffs of smoke, as black as can poffibly be imagined, fucceeded one another haftily, and accompanied the red hot, transparent, and liquid lava, interrupting its fplendid brightness here and there by patches of the darkeft hue. Within thefe puffs of fmoke, at the very moment of their emiffion from the crater, I could perceive a bright, but pale, electrical fire, briskly playing about in zig-zag lines.'-The Author mentions this laft circumftance to prove, that the electrical matter, which manifested itself on many occafions during this and other eruptions, actually proceeded from the bowels of the volcano, and was not attracted from a great height in the air, and conducted into its crater by the vast volume of smoke.'-These and other pheno➡ mena formerly noticed by the Author have undoubtedly fhewn, that the electric matter is put in motion, during the times of volcanic eruptions: but, fuch is the velocity with which that matter moves, that its direction, upwards or downwards, has not yet, in any inftance, not even in the phenomena exhibited on this grand fcale, been fatisfactorily afcertained.

The light diffused by the above-mentioned huge column of fire was so strong, that Mr. Morris, an English gentleman, informed the Author that, at Sorrento, which is 12 miles from Vefuvius, he read the title-page of a book by that volcanic light.

A fhower of cinders projected from the Volcano, during the eruption of the 8th of Auguft, alarmed the Duke of Popoli, then at Monte Mileto, at about 30 miles diftance: fome of these he fent to Naples, which weighed two ounces. Stones weighing an ounce had fallen upon an estate of his ten miles farther off. A fhower of minute afhes fell the fame night at Manfredonia, at eleven o'clock, and at the distance of 100 miles from the volcano; which space they must have traversed in two hours: as the great eruption happened at nine o'clock.

One of the ftones thrown out from the volcano, to the diftance at least of a quarter of a mile, measured in circumference no less than 108 English feet, and was 17 feet in height; a folid block, much vitrified. Another block of folid lava was thrown much farther; which was found to be 16 feet high, and 92 feet in circumference: though it plainly appears, by the large fragments that lie round it, and which were detached from it by the fhock of its fall, that it must have been twice as large when in the air.

Article 6. An Account of a Method for the fafe Removal of Ships · that have been driven on Shore, and damaged in their Bottoms, to Places (however diftant) for repairing them: By Mr. William Barnard, Shipbuilder, &c.

The ingenious expedients used by the Author of this Article, in conveying fafe to the dock at Deptford the York Eaft Indiaman, and a Swedish veffel, ftranded near Margate, cannot be rendered intelligible without a reference to the plates which accompany it.

Article 9. Ett kort ut drag, &c. Extract of a Journal, kept during a Voyage to, and Refidence in, the Empire of Japan: By C. P. Thumberg, M. D. &c. With a Tranflation.

The Author of this Article was fent out by the Directors of the Botanic gardens at Amfterdam, and fome other eminent perfons of that place, first to the Cape of Good Hope, and from thence to Japan, in order to investigate the natural history of these countries, and to tranfmit from thence feeds and living plants of unknown kinds, for the use of their collections in Holland. So little is known concerning the empire of Japan; that even this short account of what the Author was permitted to obferve there, must be acceptable to the curious.

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He embarked, from Batavia, in 1775, on board a Dutch fhip; and on the 13th of Auguft failed into the harbour of Nagafacci, with colours flying, and faluted the Papenburg, the Emperor's and Emprefs's guard, and the town itfelf.' Two Over Banjofes came on board, who refemble the Mandarins of China; and who refide in a place prepared for them on the fhip's deck. Here they exhibit the following inftances of jealoufy, with respect to articles that enter or go out of the fhip.

Bedding is ripped open, and the very feathers examined. Chefts are not only emptied of their contents, but the boards of which they are made are searched; left contraband goods fhould be concealed in their fubftance. Pots of fweet meats and of butter are ftirred round with an iron fkewer. Our cheeses had a more narrow inspection: a large hole was cut into the middle of each; and a knife thrust into the fides of it in every direction. Even the eggs were not exempted from fufpicion; many of

them

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