pints or two quarts, some of which was spilt also; he had made water but once, and never had a stool all that time.

August the 7th, which is 17 weeks from the 9th of April, when he began to sleep, he awaked, put on his clothes, and walked about the room, not knowing he had slept above a night, nor could he be persuaded he had lain so long, till going out into the fields he found every body busy in getting in their harvest, and he remembered very well, when he fell asleep they were sowing barley and oats, which he then saw ripe and fit to be cut down.

There was one thing observable, that though his flesh was somewhat wasted with so long lying in bed, and fasting for above six weeks, yet a worthy gentleman, his neighbour, assured me, when he saw him, which was the first day of his coming abroad, he looked brisker than ever he saw him in his life before; and asking him whether the bed had not made him sore, he assured him that he neither found that nor any other inconveniency at all; and that he had not the least remembrance of any thing that passed or was done to him all that time. So he fell again to his husbandry, as usual, and remained well from that time till August the 17th, anno 1697, when in the morning he complained of a shivering and coldness in his back, vomited once or twice, and the same day fell into his sleeping fit again.

Being then at Bath, and hearing of it, I took horse on the 23d, to inform myself of a matter of fact I thought so strange. I found him asleep, with a cup of beer and a piece of bread and cheese on a stool by his bed, within his reach: I took him by the hand, felt his pulse, which was at that time very regular; I put my hand on his breast, and found his heart beat very regular too, and his breathing was easy and free; and all the fault I found was, that I thought his pulse beat a little too strong. He was in a breathing sweat, and had an agreeable warmth all over his body. I then put my mouth to his ear, and as loud as I could called him by his name several times, pulled him by the shoulders, pinched his nose, stopped his mouth and nose together, as long as I durst, for fear of choking him; but all to no purpose, for in all this time he gave me not the least sign of his being sensible. I lifted up his eye-lids, and found his eye-balls drawn up under his eye-brows, and fixed without any motion at all. Being baffled in all these trials, I was resolved to see what effect spirit of sal ammoniac would have, which I had brought with me, to discover the cheat, if it had been one; so I held my phial under one nostril a considerable time, which being

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drawn from quick-lime, was a very piercing spirit, and so strong I could not bear it under my own nose a moment without making my eyes water; but he felt it not at all. I then threw it, at several times, up the same nostril; which made his nose run and gleet, and his eye-lids shiver and tremble a very little; which was all the effect I found, though I poured up into one nostril about a half-ounce bottle of this fiery spirit, which was as strong almost as fire itself. Finding no success with this neither, I crammed that nostril with powder of white hellebore, which I had by me, in order to make my farther trials, and I can hardly think any impostor could ever be insensible of what I did. I remained sometime afterwards in the room, to see what effect all together might have upon him; but he never gave any sign that he felt what I had done, nor discovered any manner of uneasiness, by moving or stirring any one part of his body, that I could observe. Having made these experiments, I left him, being pretty well satisfied he was really asleep, and no sullen counterfeit, as some people supposed.

On my return to Bath, and relating what I had observed, many gentlemen went out to see him, as I had done, to satisfy their curiosity, who found him in the same condition I had left him the day before; only his nose was inflamed and swelled very much, and his lips and the inside of his right nostril blistered and scabby, with my spirit and hellebore, which I had plentifully dosed him with the day before: his mother upon this for some time after would suffer nobody to come near him, for fear of more experiments on her son. About ten days after I had been with him, Mr. Woolmer, an experienced apothecary at Bath, called at the house, being near Tinsbury, went up into the room, finding his pulse pretty high, as I had done, took out his lancet, let him blood about 14 ounces in the arm, tied his arm up again, nobody being in the house, and left him as he found him; and he assured me he never made the least motion in the world when he pricked him, nor all the while his arm was bleeding.

Several other experiments were made by those that went to see him every day from Bath, but all to no purpose. I saw him myself again the latter end of September, and found him just in the same posture, lying in his bed, but removed from the house where he was before, about a furlong or more; and they told me, when they removed him, by accident, carrying him down stairs, which were somewhat narrow, they struck his head against a stone, and gave him a severe knock, which broke his head, but he never moved any more at it

than a dead man would. I found now his pulse was not quite so strong, nor had he any sweats, as when I saw him before. I tried him again the second time, by stopping his nose and mouth, but to no purpose; and a gentleman then with me ran a large pin into his arm to the very bone, but he gave no manner of token of his being sensible of any thing we did to him. In all this time they assured me nobody had seen him either eat or drink, though they endeavoured it all they could; but it always stood by him, and they observed, sometimes once a day, sometimes once in two days, all was gone. In this manner he lay till the 19th of November, when his mother hearing him make a noise, ran immediately up to him, and found him eating; she asked him how he did? He said, Very well, thank God: she asked him again, which he liked best, bread and butter, or bread and cheese? He answered, Bread and cheese: upon this, the poor woman overjoyed left him to acquaint his brother with it, and they came straight up into the chamber to him, but found him as fast asleep again as ever, and all the art they had could not wake him. From this time to the end of January, or the beginning of February, he slept not so profoundly as before, for when they called him by his name, he seemed to hear them, and to be somewhat sensible, though he could not make them any answer. His eyes were not now shut so close, and he had frequently great tremblings of his eye-lids; on which they expected every day he would wake; which however happened not till about the time just now mentioned; and then he waked perfectly well, not remembering any thing that happened all this while. It was observed he was very little altered in his flesh, only complained the cold pinched him more than usually, and so presently fell to husbandry, as at other times.

Account of River and other Shells, with various Vegetable Bodies, found under Ground. By the Rev. Mr. MORTON, A. M. and F. R. Š. — [1706.]

ON digging a moorish pasture in Mears-Ashby field, in Northamptonshire, we found a vast number of snail-shells of various kinds. At about a foot deep they lay very thick: and digging downwards, the number rather increased till we came to the depth of about three feet. It was troublesome to sink deeper on purpose; but we made trials for a considerable extent of ground, viz. about 250 feet in length, and 130 in breadth. Besides, the same shells were thrown up in several places by the moles. What we principally observed

in this search was, 1. A moist moorish black earth, in some places a foot and a half, in others somewhat above two feet in thickness. The lower half of it is blacker and denser than the upper, is of a bituminous nature, and has all the charac ters of peat-earth. Besides shells, we found stalks and leaves of grass, and also of many other vegetables reposited, as usual, in like bituminous moors. 2. White earth; so at first we called it: but on closer inspection, it appeared to be little more than hay half wasted. So deep as we sunk into it, we found it every where copiously interspersed with shells.

An Account of the Death and Dissection of John Bayles, of Northampton, reputed to have been 130 Years old. By Dr. JAMES KEILL. [1706.]

JOHN BAYLES, the old button-maker of Northampton, is commonly reputed to have been 130 years of age when he died. There is no register so old in the parish where he was christened; but the oldest people, of which some are 100, others 90, and others above 80 years, remember him to have been old when they were young. Their accounts, indeed, differ much from each other, but all agree that he was at least 120 years. He himself always affirmed that he was at Tilbury camp, and told several particulars about it; and if we allow him to have been but 12 years old then, he must have been 130 when he died, which was the 4th of April 1706; having lived in three centuries, and in seven reigns.

He used constantly to walk to the neighbouring markets with his buttons within these 12 years; but of late he has been decrepid, and carried abroad. There was nothing particular in his diet, but he ate any thing he could get. His body was extremely emaciated, and his flesh feeling hard, the shape of all the external muscles was plainly to be seen through the skin.

A due conformation of all the vital parts is most certainly necessary to bring a man to a full old age; but above all the rest, there are two which to me seem to have had the greatest share in procuring a longevity to old Parr and Bayles, by retarding the ill effects just now mentioned: the first is the heart, which in both was strong and fibrous; for that being left alone to labour the circulation of a large quantity of languid blood, a great force is absolutely requisite to propel it through unactive vessels, to the extremities of the body and back again : no doubt this is more easily done in men of a low stature (as old Bayles was) which I am apt to

think is a qualification to old age. The second was the largeness of their chests, and goodness of their lungs, by which the air had its full effort on every particle of the blood, in rendering it florid, and attenuating it so that it might easily move through the contracted channels of an old body. Few have the happiness of such a heart and lungs, yet most men wish to live long; nor was it easy for physicians to give rules for preventing the ill consequences of extreme old age, while the effects of a long circulation of the blood were unknown; of which we can be certain only by dissections of old persons, and these are not numerous enough to ground any thing certain upon: but if future observations shall confirm the remarks that have been now made, no doubt the indication will be to preserve such a softness in all the fibres, that they may easily yield to the pressure of the blood, and by their elasticity restore themselves to their former state, thereby giving a new impetus to the blood.

Experiments and Observations on the Motion of Sound, &c. By the Rev. Mr. DERHAM, Rector of Upminster, and F.R.S.

To determine the velocity of sound, I caused guns to be fired from towers, and other eminences, at the distance of one, two, three, to eight miles: the guns that served this purpose best were those at Blackheath, called sakers, whose flashes I could see from the turret of Upminster church, and hear the report almost in all weathers, and even in the daytime I could with the telescope observe the flash.

The following experiment was made at that place; viz. two guns, called sakers, were planted near each other, with the muzzle of one turned towards me, and that of the other from me, and on February the 13th, 1705, they were fired every half hour, from six o'clock in the evening till midnight, a gentle wind blowing directly against the sound; the time between the flash of each explosion (which I could observe with the naked eye) and the report was always about 120 or 122 half seconds; for the report was double; the first, which was weaker, reached in about 120 half seconds, and the other, which was stronger, in about 122 half seconds; and in the same manner there was a double report of each explosion during the whole time of the observation.

To confirm all this, I went to Foulney-sands, on the Essex coast, which form a large and regular plain, of several miles in length: there I measured six miles, and almost at the end of each mile made experiments, by firing guns; by which I