• Hanoverians will not turn their backs upon their friends in England; that is, that they will never quit this hofpitable land, ⚫ which hath called out to them for affiftance, in time of danger, to return to the barren heaths, and bon-pour-nicol of Lower Saxony.'

We have omitted many other excellent ftrokes in this little piece, that we might not totally anticipate our reader's pleafure in the perufal of it, and cannot conclude this article without recommending the concealed author's method to our prefent race of political writers, who seem utterly to have forgotten that there are fuch things in the world as wit and humour, which might be occafionally made ufe of to recommend their works to the age they live in, and (if they extend their hopes fo far) perhaps fecure them a favourable reception with pofterity.

ART. IV. Philofophical Transactions continued.

HE forty-third article is part of a letter from Mr. Wil

TH
Tliam Thornbill, late furgeon to the infirmary at Bristol,

who fays he had ufed the agaric in four capital amputations, with extraordinary fuccefs.

The next effay contains an accurate defcription of an ecclipse of the moon, written in latin by John Mendez Sacchetto Barbofa, communicated by J. de Caftro Sermento, M. D. F. R. S.

What follows is a letter to George Lewis Scot, Efq; F. R. S. concerning the number of people in England, from the Rev. doctor William Brakenridge.-This learned calculator endea vours to discover the number of the people, from the number of houics and the quantity of bread confumed. He finds from the registers both in town and country, that there are four births to every marriage, at an average; it appears from Dr. Helley's table of the probability of life, that three of these children do not arrive at the age of maturity, and he thinks the number of a family, including fervants and inmates, to be fix perfons, at a medium. At a public office he discovered that the number of houfes in England and Wales, afcertained for fome affefsinent, amounted, in the year 1710, to 729,048, exclufive of cottages that paid no tax; which he fuppofes might be one fourth of the number; and this, added to the former, will make 911,310: multiplying this again by fix, the number in

each

pe

each family, we find the whole number of people, at that riod, amounted to 5,467,860. Since the year 1710, he computes the increafe at 789,558, which, added to the other, makes the number of people at prefent, in England and Wales, to be 6,257,418.

With respect to the other way of afcertaining the number, namely, that of confidering the quantity of bread confumed, he endeavours to difcover the quantity of wheat produced in England, by reafoning upon the proportion it bears to barley. He affirms that there is as much ground fown with barley as with wheat, and that the crop produced from barley, is to that produced from wheat as three to two. He finds from the bounty-money paid by the government, that 500000 quarters of wheat are annually exported. Some is ufed for mechanical purposes at home, befides that used for food; there is likewife fome barley exported, and a great, quantity used in fattening hogs. He fuppofes this consumption balances that of the wheat for exportation and mechanical ufes. From the malt tax, in a series of years, he finds that 3,039,150 quarters of barley are confumed annually in malt; confequently, if the proportion of three to two holds between it and the wheat, there must be 2,026,100 quarters of wheat confumed at home yearly. One quarter of wheat produces 512 pounds of flour; each perfon, at an average, confumes seven ounces in a day; fo that 2,026,100 quarters of wheat will sustain 6,078,300, or at leaft fix millions of people. As fome people in the northern counties ufe oat-meal and rye-meal, he allows for this circumstance, in his fixing no more than one quarter of wheat for three perfons through the kingdom. Deducting 200,000 for those loft in our wars, fince 1710, we find the two methods of calculation confirm each other; and, according to Dr. Halley's rule, there will be about fifteen hundred thousand men able to carry arms. So that Sir William Petty must be mistaken, who computed the number of people at 7,369,000, even in the year 1690.

Doctor Brakenridge endeavours to prove that England is thinly inhabited, and capable of maintaining nine millions of inhabitants. But, he is certainly mistaken in fuppofing that there is no more than one fifth wafte ground: he is ftill

more

more mistaken in allotting no more than one fourth of waste ground in Ireland; and errs egregiously in fuppofing that two thirds of Scotland are cultivated. We apprehend he would have come nearer the truth in computing one third of wafte ground for Ireland, and one half for Scotland. * Yet we can-; not but affent to his deduction, which is, that the Briti ifles, duly cultivated, would sustain an addition of fix millions to the prefent number of people that England now contains.. Then he proceeds to fhew that the quantity of land in the whole globe of earth would maintain above twenty-fix times the prefent number of mankind; and that if we suppose births and burials, over all the globe, nearly in proportion to thofe of England, above one thousand years will elapfe before the earth can be fully peopled. From this confideration too we are led to believe that the origin of mankind is not more antient than it is commonly supposed to be.

By comparing the births with the burials, according to Dr. Derham, in his Phyfico-theology, and taking the mean between the two extreme degrees of health in England, which will fix the proportion of the dead to the living, as one to forty, that is 150,000 out of 6,000,000; the births being to the burials, as 1 to 1,12, will amount to 168,000, fo that the annual increase must be 18,000. This is fo much diminished by the emigrations of great numbers to our colonies and fettlements, and by our wars and loffes at sea, that were it not for the acceffion of foreigners and adventurers from Scotland and Ireland, the country might be depopulated."

Then the doctor proceeds to an algebraical calculation, by means of logarithms, in order to investigate the proportion of the increase; and he finds that, according to the prefent state of births and burials, the number of people would not be doubled in less than 231 years; that 230 years ago, in the reign of Henry VIII, the number could not be above one half of what it is at prefent; and that 135 years must elapfe before England can be fully peopled. By the fame general induction it appears, that if the number of people in England,

in

The number of fouls in Scotland is eafily afcertained; for every minifter keeps an exact register of all the men, women, and children, in his parish, that he may know who are fit and who are not fit to be catechifed yearly.

in the year 1710, was 5,467,860, it would now amount to 6,250,000, if the increase has not been diminished by wars and emigrations.

Dr. Brakenridge has expended great pains and ingenuity in discovering, by abstracted mathematical calculation, the number of people in England, which might be eafily afcertained, if the legislature would appoint certain perfons in every pa→ rifh of Great Britain, to number the people within their feveral districts in one day, and as nearly as poffible in the fame hours of that day. Every individual might be mentioned by name, in the place where he or she should happen to be at the time of enquiry, that there might be no rifque of num bering the fame perfons twice, from their moving about during the investigation.

In the 46th article that indefatigable fearcher into antiquity, Dr. Ward, prefents us with an effay on two Roman infcriptions, found upon as many altars dug up at Bath. Much erudition hath he manifested in proving that the Treveri inhabited that part of Belgic Gaul, now called the electorate of Triers that Jupiter in the inscription might be termed Getius, from a mountain in Germany of that name; and that the word Nemetona may, for aught he knows, be the appellation of fome goddefs, tho', in order to make it grammar, it ought to have been Nemetana. He gives us to understand that the other altar is dedicated to certain deities called Sulevae, and fometimes Campestres, in number three, like the Gorgons, Graces, Syrens, Sybils, &c. This altar is dedicated by Sulinis Scultor; but whether Scultor was the cognomen, or cut inftead of fculptor, alluding to the workman, is a doubt which we apprehend, the doctor has not quite refolved. Those old ftones are very apt to hurt the teeth of antiquarians before they can come at the kernel, which is feldom worth the trouble of cracking the cafe. Even these two infcriptions, notwithstanding the doctor's explanation, may exercise the ingenuity of other conjecturers, and at last prove hard crufts for the gums of the critick.

What follows is the description of an echinus, by Gustavus Brander, exhibited on a plate and this is fucceeded by an VOL. II.

K

account

account of the impreffion on a ftone, dug up in the island of Antigua, in a letter from the rev. Mr. Byam, vho fends likewife a table containing the quantities of rain which fell in that ifland for four years. The ftone in which they found the impreffion, was brought from a quarry about three hundred yards higher than the high-water mark, and two miles from the fea: it exhibits the exact refemblance of a fifh called the Old Wife, and is engraved from an elegant drawing of Mr. Arthur Pond, F. R. S. who, in the subsequent article, gives a more minute account of this ftrange phænomenon. It appears that the matter muft have petrified around a rea fish.

Guftavus Brander, Efq; makes his appearance again in a flash of lightening, which damaged the iron-work belonging to the clock of the Danish church in Wellclofe-fquare.

The 51ft article contains electrical experiments made by Mr. Benjamin Franklin, at Philadelphia, founded on these principles, that electric atmospheres, which flow round nonelectric bodies, being brought near each other, do not readily mix and unite into one atmosphere, but remain separate, ⚫ and repel each other.

This is plainly feen in fufpended cork balls, and other bodies electrified.

An electric atmosphere not only repels another electric atmosphere, but will alfo repel the electric matter contained in the fubftance of a body approaching it; and, without joining or mixing with it, force it to other parts of the body, that contained it.

This is fhewn by fome of the following experiments.

Bodies electrified negatively, or deprived of their natural quantity of electricity, repel each other, (or at least appear to do fo, by a mutual receding) as well as those electrified * pofitively, or which have electric atmospheres.

This is fhewn by applying the negatively charged wire of a phial to two cork balls, fufpended by filk threads, and by inany other experiments.

Thefe experiments are followed by the extract of a letter n the fame fubject, from the fame gentleman, who, (in order

to