brother John Dn, who was seized with a violent pain in his head and back when about 14 years of age. One of my sisters at that time had the small-pox, and my mother judging that he was taken with the same distemper, used no means to remove it, till by accident Mr. Greatrix coming to our house, and hearing of his illness, desired to see him; he ordered the boy to strip to his shirt, and having given present ease to his head by only stroking it with his hands, he fell to rub his back, which he most complained of, but the pain immediately fled from his hand to his right thigh; he followed it there, it fell to his knee, from thence to his leg, but he still pursued it to his ankle, thence to his foot, and at last to his great toe; as it fell lower it grew more violent, especially when in the toe it made him roar out, but upon rubbing it there it vanished, and the boy cried out, It is quite gone. It never troubled him after, but he took the small-pox about three weeks after. The next instance was Mrs. D- she was seized when a girl with a great pain and weakness in her knees, which occasioned a white swelling; and having used divers means to no effect, after six or seven years' time Mr. Greatrix coming to Dublin, he was brought to her, where he stroked both her knees, the pain flying downwards from his hand, it drove it out of her toes: he gave her present ease, and the swelling in a short time wore away, and never troubled her after. One Mrs. Le, who, after a fever, was much troubled with a pain in her ears and very deaf, came to Mr. Greatrix, who put some of his spittle into her ears, and turning his finger in them rubbed and chafed them well, which cured her both of the pain and deafness. Mr. Charles L- -n was cured by him of the same malady, having nearly lost his hearing by some accident, till Mr. Greatrix, by stroking, restored it. Mrs. Sn, when a child, was extremely troubled with the King's evil: her mother sent her to be stroked in King Charles the Second's time to London, but she received no benefit; yet Mr. Greatrix perfectly cured her. One Pearson, a smith, had two daughters extremely troubled with the evil, the one in her thigh, the other in her arm: he cured them both.

I could add many things of this nature, both of what I have seen and heard from my mother, who was much more with him than myself, but wanting room, shall only tell you, that where he stroked for pains, he used nothing but his dry hand; but for ulcers or running sores he used spittle on his hand or finger; and for the evil, if they came to him before it was broke, he stroked it, and ordered them to poultice it with boiled turnips, and so did every day till it grew fit for lancing ;

he then lanced it, and with his fingers would squeeze out the cores and corruption, and then in a few days it would be well, with his only stroking it every morning. Thus he cured many who continue well to this day; but if it were broke before he saw them, he only squeezed out the core, and healed it by stroking. Such as were troubled with fits of the mother, he would presently take off the fit, by only laying his glove on their head, but never cured the distemper thoroughly, for the fits would return. I have heard he cured many of the falling sickness, if they stayed with him, so that he might see them in three or four fits; otherwise he could not cure them.

Beds of Oyster-shells_found_near Reading, in Berkshire. By Dr. JAMES BREWER. — [1700.]

THESE shells have the entire figure and matter of oystershells, and, doubtless, are such. The compass of the ground where they are dug up is near six acres. Just above the layer of these oysters there is a greenish earth, or rather sand, and under them chalk. I have often seen in several chalk-pits a few scattered oyster-shells. But in this place, they are, as it were, one continued body, and in an even line, through the whole extent of the ground.

This stratum of green sand and oyster-shells is about two feet thick. Immediately above this layer of green sand and shells is a bed of a bluish sort of clay, very hard, brittle, and rugged, called a pinny clay, and is near three feet thick; and immediately above it is a stratum of fuller's earth, which is near 2 feet deep, often used by the clothiers; and above this earth again is a bed of a clear, fine, white sand, without the least mixture of any earth, clay, &c., which is near seven feet deep; then immediately above this is a stiff red clay, being the uppermost stratum, of which tiles are made. The depth of this cannot be conveniently taken, it being so high a hill, on the top of which is dug a little common earth, about two feet deep, and immediately under appears this red clay. I dug out several whole oysters, with both their valves or shells lying together, as oysters opened before. These shells are so very brittle, that in digging, one of the valves will frequently drop from its fellow; but it is plainly to be seen that they were united together, by placing the shell that drops off to its fellow-valve, which exactly corresponds. I dug out several that were entire, nay, some double oysters with all their valves united.

An Account of Giants. By Dr. THOMAS MOLYNEUX.

THE os frontis in the anatomical school at Leyden, though it be so vastly large, cannot in the least be suspected to have appertained to any other animal than a man, being complete every way, and answering in all particulars to the common forehead-bone of other men, excepting its magnitude. And arguing from the proportion that the same bone in other men bears to their height, it must follow that the man to whom this os frontis belonged was more than twice the height that men usually are, according to the common course of nature. And setting down, as the most moderate computation, but 5 feet for the height of a man, he to whom this bone belonged must have been more than 11 or 12 feet high.

There is a manifest alliance and congruity observable in nature, between the stature of a man's body and his age during the time of his growth; and as 5 feet may well be esteemed the most settled and ordinary degree of height in a man, so about 70 years may justly be allowed the most common period of his age: we have daily instances of exceptions; Thomas Parr and Henry Jenkins, both of England, and the old Countess of Desmond and Mrs. Eckleston, both of Ireland, who fully completed double the usual term of life; so we have no reason to question the accounts given us of others, that have been found in stature double the common standard of man. Nay, both longevity and high stature naturally so result from their proper causes, that they are often observed to become hereditary, and run in whole families; whence the Greeks had their Macrobii, and the Romans their Celsi; and in Palestine, of old, they had their Anakims, or sons of the giants. So that human gigantic bodies are nowise inconsistent with the course of nature. And, indeed, we have testimonies from authors of unquestionable credit, that there have been men in the world, and it is likely there still are, of such stature, as properly to deserve the name of giants.

The first I shall mention was one I saw and measured at Dublin, in the year 1682, his name Edmond Malone, who measured seven feet seven inches. Walter Parsons, porter to King James the First, born in Staffordshire, was nearly of the same stature; and I find several other men born in England who have arrived to this height.

Isbrand Diemerbroeck, in his Anatomy, tells us, that he saw at Utrecht, in 1665, a man 8 feet high, all his limbs well shaped, and his strength proportionable to his height: he was born at Schoonhoven, in Holland, of parents of an ordinary

stature. Mr. Ray, in his Travels, mentions having seen this man at Bruges, in Flanders. Johannes Goropius Becanus, who lived in Flanders, has recorded several instances still more remarkable: he says he saw a youth almost nine feet high, a man near 10 feet, and a woman quite 10 feet in height. Pliny the naturalist particularises by name several men in his own age much of the same height as those mentioned by Becanus.

To these histories we may add the many concurring testimonies given us by various travellers of gigantic men seen in their voyages in the more remote parts of the world. Andreas Thevet, in his Description of America, tells us, that he was shown by a Spanish merchant the skull and bones of an American giant, who was 11 feet five inches in height, and died in the year 1559: he showed them to M. Thevet, who took the measures of the principal of them; the bones of the legs measured three feet four inches in length, and the skull was three feet one inch about. Which circumference is exactly proportionable to the length of the legs; and if we make an allowance for the hair and skin that covered the skull when he was alive, it falls very little short of the dimensions we have before set down, in computing the size of our giant's head when it was entire.

From these warrantable histories, and this particular bone before us, we may clearly deduce that there have been human bodies 11 or 12 feet high; equal to the stature of the tallest giants mentioned in holy writ. For the height of Goliath of Gath is expressly said to be but six cubits and a span; and taking a cubit in the most usual acceptance for a foot and a half, his stature will not amount to above nine feet nine inches. Indeed we may reasonably conclude, that Og the King of Bashan must have considerably exceeded Goliath in height, if we make an estimate of his stature by the dimensions of his bedstead, which is said to have been kept as a memorial of him at Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and to have been nine cubits in length; but then we cannot imagine but that his bed must of necessity have been much longer than his body; and the least allowance we can make for the overplus is the space of nine inches above his head, and as much below his feet; and if we make this deduction, it will follow he was not above 12 feet high; much of the same standard with this giant, whose forehead-bone is still kept in the medical school at Leyden.

On the Fossil Shells and Fishes at Broughton, in Lincolnshire. By the Rev. Mr. ABR. DE LA PRYME. [1700]

In this parish are two stone pits, or quarries, very remarkable. The first is at the east end of the town, the other in the field, on the south of the town. The stones of the first are not much used for building, being soft, but what they dig them chiefly for, is to get a clayey substance, or earth, that lies under them, to cement and lay the stones of the second quarry in, of which they build their walls and fences. In which earth are innumerable fragments of the shells of shellfish of various sorts, of pectinites, echini, conchites, and others, with some bits and pieces of coral. And here are sometimes found whole shell-fish, with their natural shells on, in their natural colours, much bruised and broken, and some squeezed flat by the great weight of the earth.

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The other quarry is in the field on the south side of the town. It is a hard blue stone, in the stones of most of which are innumerable petrified shell-fish of various sorts, but so united to the stone, that it is very difficult to get them out whole; and I have always found that they lie in the superficies of the quarry within a foot of the top, and few or none deeper. In many places of the surface of the quarry, (which looks rugged and drifted, as snow does after a storm,) there are many shell-fish, half in the stone and half out; just as we see in rivers and ponds that are dry, they will lie half within the mud, half without. That part which is within the quarry is entire and whole, but a hard stone, and that part which is without, which the petrific effluvia did not touch, is consumed and gone, all but a little of the edges, which edges are plain shell, and have all the radii and striæ on them that the shells of those sorts of fishes commonly have.

All these shell-fish have their shells on: some of which are comparatively thin. Sometimes the shells are in their petrifaction so thoroughly united unto and incorporated with the stone, that they are scarcely visible. Others in the same quarry have a thick white shell on them petrified, but not incorporated with the substance of the bed in which they lie. In getting the fish out, all the shell sticks so fast to the rock, that most commonly it is left behind; but sometimes the shell cleaves in two, one half of the shell on both sides of the fish sticks to it, and the other half to both sides of the bed, but others come out by lying in the air in frosty nights, with the whole natural shell on, and the radii or striæ very exact. There are other fish here, that have a black smooth shell,