enough to be measured, we then should be able to ascertain its velocity to the distance equal to half the quantity of wire employed only, let the manner of the electricity's discharging itself be what it would.

To make the experiment, the same phial filled with filings of iron, and coated with sheet-lead, which was used last year, was placed in the window of the room near the machine, and was connected to the prime conductor by a piece of wire. To the coating of this phial a wire was fastened; which being conducted on dry sticks to the before-mentioned field, was carried in like manner to the bottom; and being conducted thus from the bottom of the field to the top, and from the top to the bottom 7 other times, returned again into the room and was held in one hand of an observer near the machine. From the other hand of this observer, another wire, of the same length with the former, was conducted in the same manner, and returned into the room, and was fastened to the iron rod with which the explosion was made. The whole length of the wires, allowing 10 yards for their turns round the sticks, amounted to 2 miles a quarter and 6 chains, or 12276 feet.

When all parts of the apparatus were properly disposed, several explosions of the charged phial were made; and it was invariably seen, that the observer holding in each hand one of the extremities of these wires was convulsed in both his arms in the instant of making the explosions.

Instead of one, 4 men were then placed, holding each other by the hand near the machine, the first of which held in his right hand one extremity of the wire, and the last man the other in his left. These also were all seen convulsed in the instant of the explosion. Every one who felt it complained of the severity of the shock.

On these considerations we were fully satisfied, that through the whole length of this wire, being 12276 feet, the velocity of electricity was instantaneous.

Of Double Fetuses of Calves. By M. le Cat, M.D., F.R.S., &c. Dated at Rouen, August 20, 1748, N.S. N° 489, p. 497.

M. le Cat had since the month of January 1735, been in possession of a child, born in the city of Rouen, which had 2 heads, 4 arms, 4 lower extremities, and 2 trunks united, and as it were blended together. About that time he published a Description * of the internal parts of this monster, which had but one heart; but he did not cause drafts to be taken of those parts: and it was afterwards a difficult matter to have them drawn so as to exhibit a good representation of the state in which they then were. This negligence, through which he was deprived of those curious and instructive figures, which this monstrous birth would

* Journal de Verdun for March 1735, p. 194. Orig.

have afforded, made him wish for a like opportunity, in some measure at least to make amends for that fault. This opportunity presented itself in Jan. 1748, not in a human fetus indeed, but in a calf, which the butchers of the hospital cut out of a cow. The description of which monster is as follows.

The integuments of the breast being raised, there appeared the union and reciprocal insertion of the pectoral muscles of each subject into one common linea alba. None but the inmost plans were attached to the bones.

The muscles being removed, one sternum, common to both subjects, appeared in sight. There was a sternum entirely similar to this, on the other or opposite side. The heart was common to both.

A trunk was formed by the reunion of the carotids, and the subclavians; which trunk commonly constitutes the superior aorta; but in this subject it only sends a small canalis arteriosus into the inferior aorta. There was a thick common trunk of the pulmonary artery and the inferior aorta. The latter plainly appears a continuation of this trunk; whereas it is commonly a continuation of the aorta and the pulmonary artery only furnishes the aorta, which makes but one canal in ordinary subjects, with a canalis arteriosus, or canal of communication. And indeed he was of opinion, that this structure, which seems extraordinary, is natural to every fetus that is not far advanced, as he explains it in his course of physiology under the article of the fetus; and that it is a consequence and proof of the mechanical and successive formation of the organs of its circulation, which begins by the lower circle made by the umbilical vein, as the first mover; the trunk of the vena cava, the inferior aorta, and the branches of the vena cava, which correspond with it. Now the one subject a had several marks, which demonstrated that its formation was less advanced than that of the other subject B.

The umbilical vein of the subject в received a large branch of the umbilical vein of the subject A: and which branch seemed to supply the place of the venal duct that was wanting. Having thrown in the injection through this vein, the heart and vessels of the 2 subjects were injected.

The orifices of the umbilical arteries were but 2 in number, one for each subject; the one and the other issuing from the right iliac of each subject.

The heart had only 2 cavities, as usual; but the right cavity or ventricle belonged to the subject B; and the left ventricle to the subject A. Into each of the cavities there opened 4 orifices; viz. two arterial, which were those of the pulmonary arteries, and of the aortas; and two venal orifices, or those of the right and left auricles, for the blood of the cave, and of the pulmonary veins.

He gives the name of aorta to the superior arterial trunk of the subject a, in conformity with the usual appellations, and because in common subjects this

trunk alone deserves that name; though in this case the pulmonary artery visibly constitutes the principal part of the inferior aorta.

Concerning a Wether giving Suck to a Lamb; and of a Monstrous Lamb. By the Rev. Dr. Doddridge. * N° 489, p. 502..

D. D. had this remarkable fact from a member of the church of which he was pastor, and in whom he could entirely confide. The person told him that he had in Upper Heyford field, about 4 miles from Northampton, a wether sheep, which then sucked a lamb. The lamb sometime before ran after it, and fixed on its teats: drawing hard, milk followed. The lamb had subsisted very well on what it sucked from him, and at the late shearing time he himself pressed the teats, and milk came out in a considerable quantity.

This reminded the Dr. of what Mr. Ray tells us from Boccone, that a country, man in Umbria nourished his child by his own milk, and Florentini and Malpighi are quoted on the same occasion. Bartholin, in his Anatomy, p. 215, has some remarkable passages to this purpose: he quotes a passage in Aristotle concerning a he-goat in Lemnos, which had a great quantity of milk.

Dr. D. adds a short account of a monstrous lamb, which was weaned in a field near Newport Pagnel about the middle of March, and was brought to him soon. after it died. It had 2 perfect heads, and 2 long necks, each as large as that of a common lamb, but sucked only with that on the right side. So far as he could learn, the organs of both were compleat. It walked only on 4 legs, but had a fifth hanging down between the 2 necks, rather longer than the other 4; the bones and hoof were double, and had 4 claws: the concave side of it was turned upwards, and whenever the creature walked, this leg moved up and down as it seemed spontaneously, and in a manner answerable to the motion of the other 4: it had 2 tails, but no vent behind: it had also 2 distinct spines, but they met about 5 inches above the tail, and then divided again; but where they met they were not as one entire spine, but as 2 adhering to each other. There

Dr. Philip Doddridge, an eminent English divine, was born at London in 1702. After completing his education at an academy at Kilworth in Leicestershire, kept by Mr. Jennings, he became a minister in that town, and on the death of Mr. Jennings he succeeded him in the academy; but shortly after he accepted a call from the dissenting congregation at Northampton, where his academy soon became flourishing. Here Dr. D. laboured with great assiduity as a minister and instructor, generally admired and esteemed, by men of every persuasion, for the extent of his learning, the amiableness of his manners, and the piety of his disposition. His continued exertions however were too much for his constitution, and soon destroyed his health; for the recovery of which he repaired to Lisbon, where he died in 1751, at 49 years of age.

Dr. D.'s chief publications were, 1. The Family Expositor; being an exposition of the New Testament, in 6 vols. 4to. 2. The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, 8vo. 3. Various Sermons and Tracts, which were collected in 3 vols. 12mo.

were 2 sets of ribs, only those which met upwards, where the spine should regularly have been placed, were rather shorter than the other: and it seemed that the blade-bone belonging to the doubled leg, that grew between the necks, was larger than the rest, and seemed to be 2 bones, but not entirely distinct it had 2 hearts of equal size, lying over each other, almost like a St. Andrew's cross. There were 2 œsophagi, and 2 aspera arteriæ: 4 small lobes of lungs, but the 2 gullets were inserted into 1 common stomach. There was nothing preternatural in the formation of the intestines, but the tails grew so near, that the return of both seemed to point to one vent, though as before observed, the anus was deficient. It had 3 kidneys, 1 of them very large in proportion to the other 2; so that he apprehends there was a conjunction.

Abstract of a Letter from Mons. Buffon,* Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, &c. concerning his Re-invention of Archimedes's Burning Specula. N° 489, p. 504.

The speculum already constructed, and which is but 6 feet broad, and as many high, burns wood at the distance of 200 feet; it melts tin and lead at the

* Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count de Buffon, was born at Montbard, Sept. 7, 1707. In his youth he was chiefly attached to pleasure and amusements, without any particular attention to study; till chance brought him acquainted with the young lord Kingston, then on his travels, whose travelling tutor, being a man of scientific pursuits, gave a turn to young Buffon's disposition. Hence he lived with them at Paris and at Saumur, he followed them to England, and accompanied them to Italy. From this beginning Buffon continued to cultivate, with extraordinary success, most of the sciences, but chiefly natural history. Being of a strong and robust frame, an ardent mind, a sanguine disposition, his pursuits and discoveries were rapid, ingenious, and important. The variety and excellence of his compositions soon introduced him to respect and literary honours. He was admitted of the Academy of Sciences in 1739, and the same year named intendant of the king's botanical garden; an office which he filled with the greatest honour to himself. His articles in the Memoirs of the Aca demy of Sciences were very numerous, and of considerable importance. Besides these, he published several other separate works on different subjects; the chief of which were, a Translation into French of Hales's Vegetable Statics, in 1 vol. 4to; and his grand work, the Hist. Naturelle, in 19 vols. 4to, by which he rendered his name immortal. Here the general theory of the globe we inhabit; the disposition, nature, and the origin of the substances it offers to our notice; the grand phenomena which operate on its surface, or in its bosom; the history of man, and the laws which take place at his formation, in his developement, in his life, at his dissolution; the nomenclature and the description of quadrupeds and of birds, the examination of their faculties, the description of their manners; such are the objects that Buffon has treated in this grand work. The philosophical reflections mixed with the descriptions, with the exposition of facts, and description of manners, add at once to the interest, to the charms, and utility of the composition. The strength of his constitution, and activity of his mind, enabled Buffon to continue his studious and useful labours, to the very last years of a long life, though often embittered by a painful disorder so frequently the consequence of a studious and sedentary occupation; by which his valuable life was at length terminated in 1788, at 81 years of age.

The particular list of Buffon's writings may be seen in Rozier's large index to the articles in the

distance of above 120 feet, and silver at 50. The theory which led him to this discovery, is founded on 2 important remarks, the one that the heat is not proportional to the quantity of light, and the other that the rays do not come parallel from the sun. The first of these, which appears to be a paradox, is nevertheless a truth, of which we may easily satisfy ourselves, by reflecting that heat propagates itself even within bodies; and that when we heat at the same time a large superficies, the firing is much quicker than when we only heat a small portion of the same.

An Essay on Quantity: occasioned by reading a Treatise, in which Simple and Compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and Merit. By the Rev. Mr. Reid. Communicated in a Letter from the Rev. Henry Miles, D.D., F.R.S. N° 489, p. 505.

Since it is thought that mathematical demonstration carries a peculiar evidence along with it, which leaves no room for further dispute, it may be of some use, or entertainment at least, to inquire to what subjects this kind of proof may be applied.

Mathematics contain properly the doctrine of measure; and the object of this science is commonly said to be quantity; therefore quantity ought to be defined, what may be measured. Those who have defined quantity to be whatever is capable of more or less, have given too wide a notion of it, which it is apprehended has led some persons to apply mathematical reasoning to subjects that do not admit of it. Pain and pleasure admit of various degrees, but who can pretend to measure them?

Whatever has quantity, or is measurable, must be made up of parts, which bear proportion to each other, and to the whole; so that it may be increased by addition of like parts, and diminished by subtraction, may be multiplied and divided, and in short, may bear any proportion to another quantity of the same kind, that one line or number can bear to another. That this is essential to all

volumes of the Royal Academy of Sciences, in 4 vols. 4to. And a general analysis of his works and life in the History of the Academy for the year 17.88. An account of his life and writings has also been published separately by M. Cuvier.

It must not be dissembled however that the natural history of the Count de Buffon, though often distinguished by peculiar eloquence, is of too diffuse and rambling a cast to be considered as a proper model of good writing. His theories are bold and ingenious, but at the same time highly absurd. In. his history of quadrupeds he seems to take a particular delight in railing at methodical distribution and. minute exactness of description, and affects to be particularly severe against the arrangements of Linneus. The work is in reality much more valuable for the anatomical descriptions of Daubenton annexed to each article than for the declamatory barangues of the Count de Buffon himself, who seems not to have perceived, that a natural history conducted on his own plan and principles, must inevi tably have sunk under its own. weight.