Account of Margaret Cutting, a young Woman, at Wickham Market, in Suffolk, who speaks readily and intelligibly, though she has lost her Tongue. By HENRY BAKER, F.R.S.

Ipswich, April 9. 1742.-We have this day been at Wickham Market, to satisfy our curiosity concerning Margaret Cutting, a young woman, who, we were informed, could talk and discourse without a tongue.

She informed us, that she was now more than 20 years of age, born at Turnstal, a village within four miles of Wickham Market, in Suffolk, where she lost her tongue by a cancer, being then about four years old. It first appeared like a small black speck on the upper superficies of the tongue, and soon ate its way quite to its root. She was under the care of Mr. Scotchmore, a surgeon of Saxmundham, who soon pronounced the case incurable: however, he continued using the best means he could for her relief. One day when he was syringing it, the tongue dropped out, and they received it into a plate, the girl, to their amazement, saying to her mother, "Don't be frighted, mamma; it will grow again." It was near a quarter of a year after, before it was quite cured.

We proceeded to examine her mouth with the greatest exactness we could, but found not the least appearance of any remaining part of a tongue, nor was there any uvula. We observed a fleshy excrescence on the under left jaw, extending itself almost to the place where the uvula should be, about a finger broad: this excrescence, she said, did not begin to grow till some years after the cure: it is by no means movable, but quite fixed to the parts adjacent. The passage down the throat, at the place where the uvula should be, or a little to the right of it, was a circular open hole, large enough to admit a small nutmeg.

Notwithstanding the want of so necessary an organ as the tongue was generally supposed to be, to form a great part of our speech, and likewise to be assisting in deglutition, to our great admiration, she performed the office of deglutition, both in swallowing solids and fluids, as well as we could, and in the same manner; and as to speech, she discoursed as fluently and well as other persons do; though we observed a small sound, like what is usually called speaking through the nose; but she said she had then a great cold, and she believed that occasioned it. She pronounced letters and syllables very ar ticulately; the vowels she pronounced perfectly, as also those

consonants, syllables, and words, that seemed necessarily to require the help of the tongue.

She read to us in a book very distinctly and plain; only we observed, that sometimes she pronounced words ending in ath as et; end as emb; ad as eib; but it required a nice and strict attention to observe even this difference of sound. She sings very prettily, and pronounced her words in singing as is common. What is still very wonderful, notwithstanding the loss of this useful organ the tongue, which is generally allowed by anatomists, and natural philosophers, to be the chief, if not the sole, organ of taste, she distinguishes all tastes very nicely, and can tell the least perceivable difference in either smell or taste.

We the underwritten do attest the above to be a true account. Benjamin Boddington. William Notcutt, Minister. William Hammond, Apothecary.

The Effects of Cold at Prince of Wales's Fort, on Churchill River, in Hudson's Bay, North America. By Capt. CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON, F.R.S.- [1742.]

CAPT. M. observed, that the hares, rabbits, foxes, and partridges, in September, and the beginning of October, changed their native colour to a snowy white; and that for six months, in the severest part of the winter, he never saw any but what were all white, except some foxes of a different sort, which were grizzled, and some half red, half white.

That lakes and standing waters, which are not above 10 or 12 feet deep, are frozen to the ground in winter, and the fishes in them all perish. Yet in rivers near the sea, and lakes of a greater depth than 10 or 12 feet, fishes are caught all the winter, by cutting holes through the ice down to the water, and putting lines and hooks in them.

Beef, pork, mutton, and venison, that are killed at the beginning of the winter, are preserved by the frost, for six or seven months, entirely free from putrefaction, and prove tolerably good eating. Likewise geese, partridges, and other fowl, that are killed at the same time, and kept with their feathers on, and guts in, require no other preservative, but the frost, to make them good wholesome eating, as long as the winter continues. All kinds of fish are preserved in the like

manner.

In large lakes and rivers, the ice is sometimes broken by

imprisoned vapours; and the rocks, trees, joists, and rafters of our buildings, are burst with a noise not less terrible than the firing of a great many guns together. The rocks which are split by the frost are heaved up in great heaps, leaving large cavities behind; which may be caused by imprisoned watery vapours, that require more room, when frozen, than they occupy in their fluid state. Neither is it wonderful that the frost should be able to tear up rocks and trees, and split the beams of our houses, when we consider its great force and elasticity. If beer or water be left in mugs, cans, bottles, or copper pots, though they were put by our bed-sides, in a severe night they are surely split to pieces before morning, not being able to withstand the expansive force of the inclosed ice.

Bottles of strong beer, brandy, strong brine, spirits of wine, set out in the open air for three or four hours, freeze to solid ice. He tried to get the sun's refraction to every degree above the horizon, with the quadrant, but to no purpose, for the spirits froze almost as soon as brought into open air.

The frost is never out of the ground; how deep cannot be certain. They have dug down 10 or 12 feet, and found the earth hard frozen in the two summer months; and what moisture is found five or six feet down is white like ice. The waters or rivers near the sea, where the current of the tide flows strong, do not freeze above nine or 10 feet deep. All the water used for cooking, brewing, &c. is melted snow and ice; no spring is yet found free from freezing, though dug ever so deep down. All waters inland are frozen fast by the beginning of October, and continue so till the middle of May.

The walls of the house they lived in are of stone, two feet thick, the windows very small, with thick wooden shutters, which are close shut 18 hours every day in the winter. There are cellars under the house, where are put the wines, brandy, strong beer, butter, cheese, &c. Four large fires are made in great stoves, built on purpose, every day. As soon as the wood is burnt down to a coal, the tops of the chimneys are close stopped with an iron cover: this keeps the heat within the house, though at the same time the smoke makes their heads ache, and is very offensive and unwholesome; notwithstanding which, in four or five hours after the fire is out, the inside of the walls of the house and bed-places will be two or three inches thick with ice, which is every morning cut away with a hatchet. Three or four times a day they

make iron shot of 24 pounds weight red-hot, and hang them up in the windows of the apartments. Though a good fire be in the room the major part of the 24 hours, yet all this will not preserve the beer, wine, ink, &c. from freezing.

Coronæ and parhelia, commonly called halos and mocksuns, appear frequently about the sun and moon here. They are seen once or twice a week about the sun, and once or twice a month about the moon, for four or five months in the winter, several coronæ of different diameters appearing at the same time. Five or six parallel coronæ, concentric with the sun, are seen several times in the winter, being for the most part very bright, and always attended with parhelia or mock-suns. The parhelia are always accompanied with coronæ, if the weather be clear; and continue for several days together, from the sun's rising to his setting. These rings are of various colours, and about 40 or 50 degrees in diameter. The frequent appearance of these phenomena in this frozen clime seems to confirm Des Cartes's hypothesis, who supposes them to proceed from ice suspended in the air, The aurora borealis is much oftener seen here than in England; seldom a night passes in the winter free from its appearance. It shines with a surprising brightness, darkening all the stars and planets, and covering the whole hemisphere: its tremulous motion from all parts, as well as its beauty and lustre, is much the same as in the northern parts of Scotland and Denmark, &c.

Concerning a Man who lived 18 Years on Water. By Mr. ROBERT CAMPBELL, of Kernan. -[1742.]

ABOUT 18 years since, viz. about 1724, John Ferguison, of the parish of Killmelfoord, in Argyleshire, happened to overheat himself on the mountains, in pursuit of cattle, and in that condition drank excessively of cold water from a rivulet, near by which he fell asleep; he awaked about 24 hours after in a high fever; during the paroxysm of the fever, and ever since that time, his stomach loathes, and can retain no kind of aliment, except water, or clarified whey, which last he uses but seldom, there being no such thing to be had by persons of his condition in that country during many months in the year.

Archibald Campbell of Ineverliver, to whom this man's father is tenant, carried him to his own house, and locked him up in a chamber for 20 days, and supplied him himself with fresh water, to no greater quantity in a day than an

ordinary man would use for common drink; and at the same time took particular care, that it should not be possible for his guest to supply himself with any other kind of food without his knowledge; yet after that space of time, he found no alteration in his vigour or visage.

He is now about 36 years of age; of middle stature; with a healthy, though not seemingly robust, complexion; his habit of body is meagre, but in no remarkable degree; his ordinary employment is looking after cattle; for which he must travel four or five miles a day in that mountainous country.

Observations and Experiments on the Fresh-water Polypus. By M. TREMBLEY, at the Hague. Translated from the French, by P. H. Z., F.R.S.- [1742.]

THE animal in question is an aquatic being, It is represented as sticking to a twig. Its body A B, which is pretty slender, has on its anterior extremity A, several horns, AC, which serve it instead of legs and arms, and which are yet slenderer than the body. The mouth of the polypus is in that anterior extremity; it opens into the stomach, which takes up the whole length of the body AB. This whole body forms but one pipe; a sort of gut, which can be opened at both ends.

C C

The length of the body of a polypus varies according to its different species, and according to many other circumstances, to be mentioned hereafter.

M. Trembley knows two species, of which he has seen some individuals extend their bodies to the length of an inch and a half; but this is uncommon. Few are generally found above nine or 10 lines long; and even these are of the larger kind. The body of the polypus can contract itself, so as not to be above a line, or thereabouts, in length. Both in contracting and extending itself, it can stop at any degree imaginable, between that of the greatest extension, and of the greatest contraction.

The length of the arms of the polypus differs also according to the several species: those of one of the species can be extended to the length of seven inches at least. The number of legs or arms is not always the same in the same species. We seldom see in a polypus, come to its full growth, fewer than six. The same may be said of the extension, and