to prove that pointed rods of iron erected on buildings, and communicating with the moift earth, would either prevent a ftroke of lightening, or conduct it fo as the building should fuffer no damage) relates the following accident: Being in the town of Newbury in New-England, in November last, "I was shewn the effect of lightning on their church, which had been ftruck a few months before. The fteeple was a fquare tower of wood, reaching feventy feet up from the ⚫ ground to the place where the bell hung; over which rose a taper fpire, of wood likewife, reaching seventy feet higher to the vane or weather-cock. Near the bell was fixed an ⚫ iron hammer to ftrike the hours; and from the tail of the hammer a wire went down through a fmall gimlet-hole in the floor that the bell ftood upon, and through a fecond 'floor in like manner; then horizontally under and near the plaistered ceiling of that fecond floor, till it came near a ⚫ plaistered wall; then down by the fide of that wall to a 'clock, which stood about twenty feet below the bell. The wire was not bigger than a common knitting-needle. fpire was split all to pieces by the lightning, and the parts flung in all directions over the square in which the church ftood, fo that nothing remained above the bell. < The The lightning paffed between the hammer and the clock < in the above-mentioned wire, without hurting either of the ⚫ floors, or having any effect upon them, except making the 'gimlet-holes, through which the wire paffed, a little bigger, • and without hurting the plastered wall, or any part of the building, fo far as the aforefaid wire and the pendulum wire • of the clock extended; which latter wire was about the • thickness of a goofe quill. From the end of the pendulum ⚫ down quite to the ground the building was exceedingly rent and damaged, and fome ftones in the foundation-wall torn out, and thrown to the distance of twenty or thirty feet. No part of the aforementioned long fmall wire, between the clock and the hammer, could be found, except about · two inches, that hung to the tail of the hammer, and about as much, that was faftened to the clock; the reft being exploded, and its particles diffipated in fmoke and air, as gunpowder K 2 powder is by common fire, and had only left a black smutty 'track on the plaiftering, three or four inches broad, darkest in the middle, and fainter towards the edges, all along the ceiling under which it paffed, and down the wall. These 'were the effects and appearances: on which I would only • make the few following remarks; viz. 1. That lightning, in its paffage through a building, will leave wood, to pafs as far as it can in metal, and not enter the wood again till the conductor of metal ceafes. And the fame I have obferved in other instances, as to walls of brick or stone. 2. The quantity of lightning, that paffed through this fteeple, must have been very great by its effects on the lofty fpire above the bell, and on the fquare tower all below the • end of the clock pendulum. 3. Great as this quantity was, it was conducted by a fmall wire and a clock pendulum, without the leaft damage to the building fo far as they extended. 4. The pendulum rod being of a sufficient thickness, conducted the lightning without damage to itfelf; but the small wire was utterly destroyed. 5. Though the fmall wire was itfelf deftroyed, yet it had • conducted the lightning with fafety to the building. 6. And from the whole it feems probable, that if even 'fuch a small wire had been extended from the spindle of the vane to the earth, before the ftorm, no damage would have been done to the fteeple by that ftroke of lightning, though the wire itself had been destroyed.' Mr. Francklin's opinion on this fubject, is confirmed by the effects of lightning at Darking in Surry, related by Mr. William Child in the next article. The three next effays are furnished by that learned naturalift doctor Stephen Hales, who has always dedicated his excellent talents to the immediate fervice of his fellow-creatures. The first contains an account of the great benefit of blowing showers of fresh air up through diftilling liquors. By means of an ingenious contrivance defcribed in a plate, he blew up showers showers of fresh air through the liquor in a ftill, and found that by this method, he diftilled double the quantity of that which comes over the helm in the ordinary way. He recommends this process at fea, by which a tun of water may be distilled in twenty hours, with little more than two bushels of coals; and in the diftillation to procure fweet water, he found that a fmall quantity of chalk was as effectual as the soap lees, used by Dr. Butler. He obferves that coals will thus diftil about eight times their weight of water; and that ventilation of sea water does not increase the quantity of falt that rises to the surface, or comes over the helm. Sea water that stunk, being diftilled, became fweet again. Stone lime fucceeded in sweetning, falt water, as well as the lapis infernalis used by Mr. Appleby. Powdered chalk, in the proportion of half an ounce to a gallon, had the fame effect. Ventilation, by increasing evaporation, will be serviceable in making common falt, pot-ash, &c. Ventilators may be commodiously fixed and worked in fhips, without encumbering the decks, or 'eing attended with any inconvenience; they not only preserve the health of the people, by exhausting the foul air, before it acquires a dangerous degree of putrefaction, but they likewise contribute to the preservation of the timber of fhips laid up in ordinary in harbour. The falutary effects of ventilation have evidently appeared in several ships crouded with men, as attefted by captain Thompson of the Success frigate, Mr. Cramond owner of a ship in the Guinea trade, captain Ellis, who used it in Guinea and in Hudson's-Bay, and laftly, by the earl of Hallifax, who ordered it to be used in feveral transport ships bound to Nova-Scotia. The method of blowing up showers of air, will cure milk of the ill tafte derived from the cabbage on which cows feed, provided the milk be heated, before the operation begins. Ventilation sweetened the stinking purging water of Jeflop's well, as well as ftinking feawater: but it could not prevent the bad taste in the butter made from the milk of cows that drink ftinking water. The doctor obferves, that this method of blowing showers of air, may be beneficially practifed in fome marfhy places, the ftinking wa ter of which produces agues: that fish may be carried alive feveral miles in the fame water, by means of this ventilation that fupplies them with fresh air, without which they cannot live and that tar-water may be freed from it's heating oil, by blowing fhowers of air up through it when it is fcalding hot; fo that the lefs volatile and more falutary acid will remain. Thefe obfervations are published by themselves, in a pamphlet printed for Richard Manby in the Old Bailey, with an appendix, containing several additional experiments and material improvements on the subjects of which he treats. The 57th article, by Thomas Barker, Efq; contains a fcheme for fhewing in general the course of the comet, expected next year or the year following, illuftrated by a copper plate, exhibiting the circumference of a circle divided into degrees, for the magnus orbis on the right point of the ecliptic and focal length, is drawn a parabola, like that observed in 1682 round the fun, the centre of the circle marked with every fourth day's motion from the perihelion and the line of it's nodes. The co-fine of the comet's inclination fet off on perpendiculars to this, towards the feveral points of the parabola, forms the projection of it, or points in the plane of the eccliptic, over which the comet is at any time perpendicular. There is likewife a table, fhewing where the comet may be expected to begin to appear any month. The 58th article is made up of feven and twenty letters, defcribing an extraordinary agitation of the waters, without any perceptible motion of the earth (except in one inftance) that was obferved, on the first day of November 1755, when Lif bon was deftroyed by an earthquake. This furprizing agitation was obferved in feas, harbours, lakes, ponds, and pools, at Portsmouth in Hampshire, in Suffex and the fouthern parts of Surry, at Guilford, Medhurst, Cranbrook in Kent, Tunbridge, Rotherhithe, Old-firect in London, Rochford in Effex, Reading, Sherburn-caftle in Oxfordshire, Plymouth, Mountfbay, Penzance and other parts of Cornwall, Swanfey, Norwich, Yarmouth, Hawkefhead in Cumberland, Durham, Lochness and Lochlomond in Scotland, Kinfale in Ireland, Toplitz in Bohemia, at the Hague and Leyden in Holland. The fame phænomenon appeared with very little variation in all thefe different places. The water was agitated without any vifible cause, suddenly retreating and returning again feveral times alternately. The The laft article contains two and twenty Letters, giving details of earthquakes felt, about the fame time, in Derbyshire, Liban and the neighbourhood, Oporto, Madrid, Cadiz, the coaft of Barbary, Madeira, Switzerland, Geneva, Boston in New-England, New-York, and Pennfylvania; fome of thefe letters are written with accuracy; but by far the greater part of them, as well as of thofe in the foregoing article, are fuperficial, unphilofophical, and unimportant; and feem to have been inferted with no other view, but to eke out the collection, or in the French phrase, pour groffir la volume. ART. V. An ESSAY on the TIMES. 8vo. Pr. One Shilling Henderson. THE HE author of this pamphlet seems to have confidered very properly, the critical fituation of the times; upon which he argues politically with great judgment and precifion. He takes a retrospect of the treaty of Utrecht, and justly obferves that the limits of our American poffeffions were at that time left unafcertained; nor were they fecured fully even by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The delays, chicanery, and even infults of the French commiffaries appointed to fettle that very important point, their encroachments and contumelious ufage of the English fubjects in America, are topics upon which he juftly defcants, and yet, fays he, have they (meaning the French) the impudence to traduce the English in every court in Europe, as the aggreffors in the quarrel, or as if these had done any more than carrying on the war upon both elements, which they had begun upon one.' He afterwards condemns our method of retaliating the injuries done us by the Fresch in America; and tells us very reasonably, that making war upon a parcel of traders, who thought themselves fheltered by the laws of nations from fuch an attack, and this without any previous declaration of war, is a procedure which can be by no means defended. This (Jays be) was then playing the game the French wifhed directly into their hands. Hurt, as they were, by the • tranfient damage we did to their mercantile intereft, a point which, K 4 |