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appeared; for such a part of the beard made no progressive motion, and remained in its motion lying in one place so long time, that when my sight failed me with looking, I was forced to leave it; and besides the fibres, which in so small a part seemed pattens or paws, had the same motion with the parts of the whole beard.

I observed the shell of an oyster, and found it all made up of plates laid in great numbers one over another, always larger and larger; so that the increase of the oyster shell is caused by the addition of a new lamen or plate in the shell; which last new made plate exceeds the rest in magnitude. These laminæ seem to be made up of small pipes, which are much interwoven. But that which gave me most satisfaction was, that when each of these lamina was arrived at its full size, then from the small pipes of the lamina were put forth minute laminæ, which are not white like the rest, but of a brown colour, and constituted of globules.

Description of a monstrous Animal cast out of the Stomach by Vomit. By Dr. LISTER, of York. -[1682.]

THE patient imagined he drank it the last summer in pondwater. This is certain, he had about his stomach and right side a most exquisite and tormenting pain, for at least four months last past, which many times threw him into horrors and chilness, ague-like; and, indeed, when he vomited this up, he was the sickest man I ever saw not to die; he also voided blood by stool several days, and now I believe he will recover, though his pains are not wholly ceased.

This animal was about four inches long, and in the thickest place three inches about: it had three fins of a side, all near the head, and the upper pair most exactly and elegantly figured, as is described; all these fins were thick and fleshy; but the forked tail was finny and transparent, and to be extended; it was placed horizontally, not as that of most, if not all, small fish, and even newts and tadpoles, in which particular it differs from them all, as well as in the fleshiness of the fins.

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Description of Pen-park Hole, in Gloucestershire. Communicated by Sir ROBERT SOUTHWEL.

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[1682.]

THERE is a place in Gloucestershire called Pen-park, about three miles from Bristol, and above three from the Severn, wherein some miners for lead, discovering a large hole in the earth, one Captain Sturmy, a warm inquisitive seaman, who has written a large folio on Navigation, would needs descend, and his narrative was as follows:

On the 2d of July, 1669, I descended by ropes affixed at the top of an old lead-ore pit, four fathoms almost perpendicular, and from thence three fathoms more obliquely, between two great rocks, where I found the mouth of this spacious place, from which a miner and myself lowered ourselves by ropes, 25 fathoms perpendicular, into a very large place, which resembled to us the form of a horse-shoe; for we stuck lighted candles all the way we went, to discover what we could find remarkable. At length we came to a river or great water, which I found to be 20 fathoms broad, and eight fathoms deep. As we were walking by this river, 32 fathoms ander ground, we discovered a great hollowness in a rock, some 30 feet above us, so that I got a ladder down to us, and the miner went up the ladder to that place, and walked into it about 70 paces, till he just lost sight of me, and from thence cheerfully called to me, and told me he had found what he looked for, a rich mine.

Here are abundance of strange places, the flooring being a kind of a white stone, enamelled with lead-ore, and the pendant rocks were glazed with saltpetre, which distilled upon them from above, and time had petrified. After some hours' stay there we ascended without much hurt, except scratching ourselves by climbing the sharp rocks. But for four days after my return I was troubled with a violent headache, which I impute to my being in that vault.

Captain Sturmy falling from his head-ache into a fever, and dying; what from his death, and the opinion of an evil spirit, nobody was willing to have any more to do with the said hole from that time to this.

But Captain Collins, commander of the Merlin yacht, coming to the Severn, and visiting Sir Robert Southwel near Kingroad, Sir Robert told him how the story of this hole had amused the country; and that the narrative had formerly been sent to his Majesty and the Royal Society; and that there wanted only some courage to find out the bottom of it. The Captain resolved to adventure, and on the 18th and 19th

of September, 1682, he took several of his men, with ropes and tackling fitting to descend, with lines to measure any length or depth, also with candles, torches, and a speakingtrumpet. What he found does much lessen the credit and terror of this hole, as will appear by the figure he took thereof, and the description following:

It is down the tunnel from the superficies to the opening of the cavity less than 39 yards. Then the hole spreading into an irregular oblong figure, is in the greatest length 75 yards, and in the greatest breadth 41 yards; from the highest part of the roof to the water was then 19 yards; the water was now in a pool, at the north end, being the deepest part: it was in length 27 yards, in breadth 12, and only five yards and a half deep; two rocks appeared above the water all covered with mud, but the water was sweet and good; there was a large circle of mud round the pool, and far up towards the south end, which showed that the water has at other times been six yards higher than at present.

The tunnel or passage down was somewhat oblique, very ragged and rocky; in some places it was two yards wide, and in some three or four, but nothing observable therein, save here and there some of that spar which usually attends the mines of lead ore. In the way, 30 yards down, there runs in, southward, a passage of 29 yards in length, parallel to the superficies above; it was two or three yards high, and commonly as broad, and alike rocky as the tunnel, with some ap pearances of spar, but nothing else in it except a few bats.

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The cavity below was in like manner rocky, and very irregular: the candles and torches burnt clear, so as to discover the whole extent thereof; nor was the air any thing offensive.

The three men that went down the first day staid below two hours and a half. The next day the captain went down with seven or eight men, who staid below for an hour, and observed all things.

The bottom of this hole, where the land-waters gather, is 59 yards down from the superficies of the earth, and by good calculation the same bottom is 20 yards above the highest rising of the Severn, and lies into the land about three miles distant from it.

The profile of the concave in Pen-park, before described: a is the superficies of the earth; b the lead-ore pit; c the tunnel or passage down; d the long gallery; e the concave or cell; f the upper edge of the mud; g two small rocks that appear above the water; h the upper part of the water; i the bottom of the water.

The Anatomy of a Rattle-Snake, dissected by EDWARD TYSON[1683.]

THE snake dissected was four feet five inches long; the girt of the body in the largest place, which was the middle, was six inches and a half; the girt about the neck three inches; near the rattle two inches; the head flat on the top, as is the viper, and by the protuberance of the maxillæ somewhat representing the head of a bearded arrow; at the extremity of it were the nostrils; between them and the eyes, but somewhat lower, were two other orifices, which I took for the ears, but afterwards found, they only led into a bone that had a pretty large cavity, but no perforation. Vipers have not these orifices in the head; and Charas says they hear by the nostrils; and that to them run not only the olfactory but auditory nerves also. The eye was round, about one fourth of an inch in diameter; in colour, the make of the pupil, and other respects, like a viper's, as indeed, except in the rattle, was the whole external shape of this animal. There was a large scale jetting over the eye, which seemed to serve as a palpebra for defending it from any thing falling on it; but I could not perceive it was capable of closing, although inwards it seemed to have a membrana nictitans, which removes any dust that might adhere to the eye.

The scales on the head were the smallest of any; those on the back larger, and so proportionably greater to the largest

part of the body; and so diminishing thence again to the setting on of the rattle; all in figure somewhat resembling parsnip seeds. Their colour various: the scales on the back had an edged rising in the middle, which was still less protuberant as they grew nearer the sides, where they were flat.

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The belly seemed flat, covered with long scales of a yellowish colour, speckled black. From the neck to the anus we numbered 168; beyond the anus were two half scales thence 19 whole scales of a black lead colour with yellowish edges; from thence to the rattle six orders or rows of smaller scales of the same colour.

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To the last vertebra of the tail was fastened the rattle; in our subject there were but five, but some others seemed to be broken off. That next the tail was of a lead-colour, the others of a cineritious. It is well described by Dr. Grew, who says, they are very hollow, thin, hard, and dry bones, and therefore very brittle, almost like glass, and very sonorous. They are all very nearly of the same bulk, and of the self-same figure, most

like the os sacrum of a man; for although the last of them only seems to have a rigid tail, or epiphysis adjoined to it, yet have every one of them the like: so that the tail of every uppermost bone runs within two of the bones below it: by which artifice they have not only a movable coherence, but also make a more multiplied sound, each bone hitting against two others at the same time.

The first figure exhibits a single rattle, which has three joints: the first and largest appears when conjoined with others; the two others serve for the fastening on the succeeding rattle, and are covered by them. The second shows the five rattles as joined together.

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On Animal Power. By J. A. BORELLI.-[1683.] THE author first gives an exact description of a muscle, which within its tendinous or nervous membrane contains several small bundles of fibres, which constitute an hexagonal square, or triangular prism; the fibres themselves in each prism being parallel, and variously connected to each other; the microscopical appearance of a single fibre representing a cylinder, not hollow like a reed, but full of a spongy pith like elder. He gives an account of the several species of muscles,

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