Various

“ I do not know, whether, in the natural state, these membranes do not retire to the circumference, in order to discover the glands within, which they usually hide, and which fill up all the middle of the crown; but when the fleshy body is gone up again, it covers all the interior parts, closes them in, and preserves them from the touch of any extraneous body. I cannot tell how these fishes live, or what is their mechanism; for I could not distinguish either a mouth, or any viscera, nor any other organ serving to their nourishment. ”

“ Indeed, when I have held a piece of pewter, that I have tryed to make magnetical, to the needle, the needle would tremble, but not approach the pewter.
I send you another piece of brass, whose either end attracts either of the poles; this I have infused the magnetic virtue into, and can at any time, so as to attract and repel the needle; but, like steel that is set a low blue, it loseth that polarity in a few hours; which may arise for its being too short for its weight, or from its different temper of hardness or softness. ”

“ When a fresh sponge is squeezed, this mucilage comes out frothy, by the mixture of the windings of its fibres: it always issues forth with sand, or little parcels of shells crushed by the sea. These fibres, which consist of the twisted doubles of the sponge, form as it were a labyrinth filled with worms, which are easily crushed, and their juice is confused with the mucilage; but having carefully torn the sponges, and their gross fibres, I discovered the living worms, such as I shall mention hereafter.
These species of sponge commonly grow upon sandy bottoms. ”

“ I agree intirely with you, as to the use of blisters in fevers; being of opinion, that when there is no particular part obstructed or inflamed, they are of little service, and sometimes hurtful, unless perhaps towards the end, when the pulse begins to sink. Nay, in fevers, where the substance of the brain is affected, and not its membranes, I have never found any sensible benefit from blisters: and I always suspect the brain itself affected, when a fever and delirium come on without any preceding head-ach, or redness in the tunica albuginea of the eyes. ”

“ However insufficient this history may be, to prove the usefulness of this plant as a vermifuge, it will at least serve to exemplify this fact; namely, that other animals of the insect kind, besides the teniæ, lumbrici, and ascarides, may subsist a long time in the primæ viæ of the human body, and be the cause of great disturbances therein [128] .
Necessity is frequently the parent of the most useful and important discoveries: and the uses to which a plant of this order is appropriated by the natives of Iceland, is a standing proof of the truth of this observation. ”

“ Every ray of light passing from a rarer into a denser medium, is refracted towards the perpendicular; but from a denser into a rarer one, from the perpendicular; and the sines of the angles of incidence and refraction are in a given ratio. But light consisting of parts, which are differently refrangible, each part of an original or compound ray has a ratio peculiar to itself; and therefore the more a heterogene ray is refracted, the more will the colours diverge, since the ratios of the sines of the homogene rays are constant; and equal refractions produce equal divergencies. ”

“ To know and distinguish, by determined and specific characters, even but a small share of that amazing multitude of objects, with which the great Parent of nature has furnished our globe, is a task far more than equal to the duration of human life. ”

“ ONE of the most natural effects of blistering plaisters, when applied to the human body, is to quicken the pulse, and increase the force of the circulation. This effect they produce, not only by means of the pain and inflammation they raise in the parts to which they are applied, but also because the finer particles of the cantharides, which enter the blood, render it more apt to stimulate the heart and vascular system. ”

“ These worms have no particular lodge: they walk indifferently into the tubular labyrinth. So that, without offence to Pliny and other naturalists, I do not see, that it is in their power to dilate and contract the bodies of the sponges; which always remain in the same state of magnitude, without being any way sensible to the touch, or any other motion of the sea, nor to any other accident whatsoever, being an inanimate body; for the animal sensitive life, or whatever you will have it, belongs only to the worms, that form these bodies, and which are their dwelling-places ”

“ Whether iron is capable of entering the blood in a state of solution, or under a saline form: for, from the violent stimulus, as well as from the dissolution of the blood, and other symptoms brought on by the use of the ore and filings, these substances (not being properly dissolved) appear to have acted in a manner so grossly mechanical, that, whatever Signor Menghini may think, very little is to be concluded from them, with regard to the action of iron on the human body, in such cases, as indicate its use, and where a rational physician would think proper to prescribe it as a medicine. ”

“ The earliest account we have of its use for the bite of a mad dog is in the Philosophical Transactions [118] , from Mr. Dampier, in whose family it had been a secret for a number of years. It was communicated first to Sir Hans Sloane, as a kind of fungus, or Jew’s-ear; and, at the request of Dr. Mead, was some years afterwards received into the London dispensatory. Scarce any of the boasted specifics of former ages ever acquired so great reputation as this plant has done in modern times, for its prevalence against the bite of a mad dog ”

“ The writers of those times distinguished two kinds of usnea humana, under the names of crustacea and villosa. Any of the crustaceous lichens, but more properly the common grey-blue pitted lichenoides of Dillenius, was used for the former of these; and, as Dale tells us, was held in most esteem. The villosa was a species of the genus of hypnum. Indeed it does not appear, that they were in those days very curious in determining the exact kind; and doubtless any moss, which happened to grow upon an human skull, was sufficient for the purposes designed. ”

“ The cultivation of that knowlege, which leads to the investigation of its subjects, cannot, therefore, but be highly useful and necessary: and altho’ the bare science of natural knowlege is of itself worthy of applause, yet it ought to be considered, in reality, as the necessary means only of applying the subjects of nature’s kingdoms to their true ends and purposes, the service of mankind. ”

“ The medicines commonly prescribed, and most depended on, are either of a virulent and drastic nature, or such as are supposed to be able to destroy those animals by some mechanical qualities e. g. to cut, tear, or otherwise affect their tender bodies, and yet not have force enough to lacerate or injure the stomach or intestines. Of the former kind are the leaves and juice of helleboraster, the bark of the Indian cabbage-tree, coloquintida, resin of jalap, glass of antimony, and the like; the effects of which are commonly violent and dangerous, and sometimes fatal. ”

“ The emperor prepares himself for this ceremony by fasting, prayers to heaven, and a kind of retreat: and the intention of it is to keep up a memorial of those times, in which the princes themselves tilled the ground. This ceremony is of the highest antiquity in China.
Over against the Sien nong tan is the Tien tan, or Hill of Heaven, near ten ly in circuit. Every thing here is magnificent. The emperor goes thither every year at the winter solstice to sacrifice to heaven. He prepares himself three days for this ceremony by fasting, in a palace of Tien tan, called the palace of fasting. ”

“ The oesophagus begins at the upper and inner part of the mouth, which is a delicate long tube; near which there is another thick one, and made nearly like the colon, which leads to a bag, or the first stomach, which may be likened to the craw of a fowl: it is always filled with fucus mixed with sand. Sometimes this stomach is double, or at least lengthens itself considerably, and the aliment parts it, as it were, into two portions. After this craw, or stomach, we find another, which performs the same office with the gizzard of fowls. ”

“ And I must observe, that in all the specimens in the British Museum I could observe no difference of species. But this is to be understood, that every sort coming from Ceylon is, by the Dutch and by the shops, called Cinnamon; and that of our own growth is by them always called Cassia. The reason is obvious.
The specimens, which I now produce, of the Canella or bark of the Cinnamon of Sumatra, I procured in the year 1755. from Mr. Tho. Combes, a gentleman then in the service of the East India Company in Sumatra, by means of a friend. ”

“ The whole is covered with two membranes, which are continuations of the flesh of the fish’s body: the membranes are loose, and larger than are necessary to the bone: they are wrinkled or rumpled over one another, to cover the whole, and to defend the bone and viscera from all kinds of pressure; but they are ready to stretch one from the other, and leave the parts destined for the purple juice uncovered. They begin a little under the neck, and extend, in the female animal, to the tail, which is flat; and in the male they do not go so low, but end at some distance from the tail. ”

“ On each side there are membranes or skins, which form kinds of ears; and under them others, which at times fill with water, and are then transparent. Under this thick skin there is a cranium, of a kind of coriaceous or cartilaginous matter; and in the cranium we find the brain, which is a white substance, and very firm. At the basis of the head its oval wide mouth is placed, being above two lines long, which often discovers a white hard edge, with which he crops the fucus’s, and other sea-plants, for his nourishment. ”

“ It is properly a beautiful pleasure-house, which the present emperor has caused to be extremely embellished. There are in it fine gardens with walks of trees, very rich and elegant apartments, halls for the musicians and comedians. From the mountain m, the last emperor of the dynasty Ming, seeing the city taken by the rebels, hanged himself on the morning of the 15th of April of the year of our Lord 1644. On the day before, the 14th of April, the empress hanged herself in the evening in the palace. The mountain in Kin chan was made by art a long time ago. ”

“ Now, according to the prevailing opinion, the object should have appeared thro’ this double prism quite of its natural colour; for if the difference of refrangibility had been equal in the two equal refractions, they would have rectified each other: but the experiment fully proved the fallacy of this received opinion, by shewing the divergency of the light by the prism to be almost double of that by the water; for the object, tho’ not at all refracted, was yet as much infected with prismatic colours, as if it had been seen thro’ a glass wedge only, whose refracting angle was near 30 degrees. ”

“ The pérèlle d’Auvergne, or orseille de terre, of the French, belongs to this order of lichens, and is called by Dillenius [100] The crayfish-eye-like lichenoides. It is gathered in large quantities in the province of Auvergne, and is used as orchel; to which however it is greatly inferior. They prepare it with lime and urine; and were acquainted with its use as a dye long before the Canary weed was known [101] to them; and it is at this day in more common use than the orchel. We have it frequent with us upon old walls, rocks, and stones ”

“ But we have chosen our example of a greater breadth than can often be required, on purpose [558] to shew how high the errors can ever arise; and how they may, if it is thought needful, be nearly estimated and corrected.
Write down, in a vacant space at the bottom of the map, a table of the errors of equidistant parallels, as from five degrees to five degrees of the whole latitude; and having taken the mean errors, and diminished them in the ratio of radius to the sine of the mean inclination of the line of distance to the meridian, you shall find the correction required ”

“ Under the mouth lie the stomach, intestines, and the tendons by which they adhere to the shell.
This then is the general character of the animal of the whole genus, whether with stems or without.
I shall now give you a short description of the several kinds I have met with, besides those of your own, and shall divide them into two kinds; those that have stems, and those that adhere by their shelly bases.
The first and most remarkable of those that have stems is the Barnacle, Fig. 1. This differs from the Lepas of Linnæus in not having a testaceous, only a cartilaginous or fleshy covering. ”

“ Since therefore the bag of our Polypus is found in the same situation as that of the Calamary, (which is also a kind of Polypus) we may suppose it to be the milt bag, and that our Polypus is a male, taken at a time when the milt was ready for ejection. In the dried specimen at the British Museum, and also in the other specimens, there is the same opening, with the pipe that rises above it towards the arms, but not the least appearance of the bag in question: they are therefore probably females, or if males, were caught before such bag was formed. ”

“ When the primary planet is an exact globe, it is well known that the force by which the revolving satellite is retained in its orbit, tends to the center of the planet, and varies in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance from it; but when the primary planet is of a spheroidical figure, the same rule then no longer holds: the gravity of the satellite is no more directed to the center of the planet, nor does it vary in the proportion above-mentioned ”

“ Perhaps the plants need not stand so long before cut; for the vegetation of plants in hot countries is very great.
There are many other most valuable vegetables in Sumatra, which might be made staple commodities, as sagoe, camphire, several sorts of ginger, rice, and many other, which are foreign to the present inquiry.
But it may not be amiss to recommend it to the traders to Sumatra to bring some quantity of the twig-bark of the true Cassia, well cured; and also to the company, to have a chemist at Sumatra, to extract carefully the oil of Cassia ”

“ Oil has long been observed to be noxious to insects of all kinds, so that not only those, which survive after being cut into several pieces, but those also, which live long with very little air, and those, which revive by warmth after submersion in water, die irrecoverably, if they are immerged in, or covered with oil. Rhedi and Malpighi have made many experiments to this purpose; and account for the event very rationally from the oil stopping up all the air-vessels, which in these animalcula are very numerous, and distributed almost over their whole bodies. ”

“ THE history of the Norfolk Boy, which, you inform me, has been communicated to the Royal Society, seems to deserve a place in the memoirs of that illustrious body, as well on account of its utility, as its singularity.
The symptoms in this case most evidently arose from worms in the intestines; which often occasion unaccountable complaints, and frequently elude the most powerful medicines, as they did in the instance before us, till at last they were dislodged by the enormous quantity of oil-paint, which the poor boy devoured ”

“ As you go on to the north, 2, 143, 214, are three gates of a great court with magnificent walls. Thro’ the gate 3 you enter into a court, where is the Tay miao No. 7. There are reposited the tablets of the ancestors of the reigning emperor, and of the illustrious subjects deceased, who have served the dynasty. This miao or palace is a vast one, and well kept. At regular times the emperor, princes, and great men, go thither to perform ceremonies.
No. 9 is the Che tsi tan, where are performed, at regular times, the ceremonies to the ancients, who have taught the art of agriculture. ”