up every thing near them, and fix their claws faft on the fhrubs and barks of trees: then the fkin on its back bursts open, and the fly comes forth, difengaging itself by degrees, leaving the cafe or exuviæ behind, in the exact shape in which it was before occupied. These cicada are spread all over the country in a few days; but, being the prey of fo many animals, their numbers foon decrease, and, their duration by the order of nature being fhort, quickly disappear.

The Indians, after having first plucked off the wings of the cicada, boil and eat them.

There are two distinct fpecies of cicada in North-America, the one here described being much larger than the other.

The leffer fpecies has a black body, with golden eyes, and remarkable yellow-veined wings.

Art. XI. An account of the plague at Conftantinople. By Murdoch Mackenzie, M. D.

In this article, Dr. Murdoch Mackenzie explodes the common opinion, that perfons fometimes die of the plague instantaneously, or in a few hours after receiving the infection; ' For it is well known (fays the doctor) that all fuch as have the plague conceal it as long as they can, and walk about as long as poffible, for the fear of being abandoned and left alone; and fo when they ftruggle for many days against it, and at last tumble down in the ftreet, and die fuddenly, people imagine, that they were then only infected, and that they died instantly of the infection; though it may be fuppofed, according to the rules of the animal economy, that the noxious effluvia must have been fome time mixed with the blood, before they could produce a fever, and afterwards that corruption and putrefaction in the blood and other fluids, at last stops their circulation, and the patients die. This was the cafe of the Greek who spoke with Knightkin, mafter of horse to his excellency Sir James Porter, and went and died in an hour afterwards in the vineyards of Buiukderé; and it was faid he died fuddenly, though it was very well known to many, that he had the plague upon him for many days before this accident happened.

Mrs. Chapouis found herfelf indifpofed for many days, anno 1758, and complained pretty much before she was fufpected to have the plague. Captain Hill's failor was infected in Candia, 1736.; was a fortnight in his paffage to Smyrna, yet he was five days in the hofpital there before he died. Mr. Lifle's gardener was indifpofed twelve days before he took to his bed, and he lay in bed eight days before he died, in July 1745.

Thucydides, in his account of the plague at Athens, relates, that fome were faid to die fuddenly of it, which may have

led others into the fame way of thinking; but Thucydides, as the doctor obferveś, knew so very little of the animal œconomy, that he himself owns, when the plague fitft attacked the Pi-` ræum, they were fo mach ftrángers to it af Athens, that they imagined the Lacedæmonians, who then befieged them, had poisoned their wells, and that fuch was the caufe of their death. This famous hiftorian likewife pretended to affirm, from the little experience he had of the plague, that the fame perfon cannot have it twice, which Dr. Mackenzie fhews to be abfolutely falfe. For the Greek Padre (fays the doctor) who took care of the Greek hofpital at Smyrna, for fifty years, affured me, that he had the plague twelve different times in that interval, and it is very certain that he died of it in 1736. Mónfieur Broffard had it in the year 1745, when he returned from France; and it is very well known, that he and all his family, died of it in April, 1762. The abbé who takes care of the Frank hofpital at Pera, affirmed to me, that he has had it already, here and at Smyrna, four different times. But what is ftill more extraordinary, is, that a young woman, who had it in September, 1763, with its moft pathognomonic fymptoms, as buboes and carbuncles, after a fever, had it again on the 11th of April following, and died of it fome days after. At this time there was not the leaft formile of any accident in or about Conftantinople, this only one excepted but there died' four perfons in the fame little houfe in September; and as the houfe was never well cleaned, and this young woman always' lived in it, he was at laft attacked a second time and died,”

Art. XII. gives an account of a remarkable tide at Briftol, By the reverend Jofiah Tucker, D. D. dean of Gloucefter.

At Rownham pallage, a mile below the city of Gloucester, the ferry-man obferved the tide to ebb almoft inftantaneously, and to fink almoft four feet perpendicular; then it flowed again, as it should have regularly done.

Art. XIII. An account of fome experiments in electricity. By Mr. Torbern Bergman, of Upfal in Sweden.

What Mr. Bergman here advances upon the fubject of electricity, is certainly very ingenious; yet, nevertheless, we apprehend there is fomething wanting in the following algebraical procefs to make it perfect: the author has it thus: Nominerer attritus fricatiet fricantis Ff refpectivè, longitudo partis fricatis, latitudo fricati d, humerus frictionum z, & etit femper Fn (I—a).

Art. XIV. An account of a fish from Batavia, called jaculator. By John Albert Schloffer, M. D. F. R. S.

The jaculator, or flooting-fifh, a name alluding to its hature, generally frequents the fhores and fides of the sea and ri

vers, in fearch of food. When it fpies a fly fitting on the plants that grow in fhallow water, it fwims on to the distance of four, five, or fix feet, and then, with a furprizing dexterity, it ejects out of its tubular mouth a fingle drop of water, which never fails ftriking the fly into the fea, where it foon becomes its prey.

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Art. XV. Gives an account of the Polish cochineal. By Dr. Wolfe, of Warfaw.

Art. XVI. contains fome obfervations upon two Etrufcan coins. By the reverend John Swinton, B. D. F. R. S. member of the academy Degli Apatisti, at Florence, and of the Etrufcan academy of Cortona, in Tufcany.

Art. XVII. XVIII. XIX, XX. exhibit obfervations of the eclipfe of the fun, the first of April, 1764.

To thefe are added, by Dr. John Bevis, and Mr. Samuel Dunn, fome obfervations of the moon's eclipfe on March 17, 1764.

In Mr. Ferguson's account of the fun's eclipfe, page 113, for time of greatest observation at Greenwich,' read time of greatest obfcuration,' &c.

Art. XXI. An account of the degree of cold obferved in Bedfordshire. By John Howard, Efq; F. R. S.

On the 22d of November last, just before fun-fet, Farenheit's fcale, by one of Bird's thermometers, was fo low as 10.

Art. XXII. exhibits fome remarks upon the first part of M. l'abbé Barthelemy's Memoir on the Phoenician Letters, relative to a Phoenician infcription in the island of Malta. By the reverend John Swinton, B. D. F. R. S.

Art. XXIII. is a catalogue of the fifty plants from Chelsea garden, prefented to the Society, by the Apothecaries company, in the year 1763.

Art. XXIV. contains obfervations on the eclipfe of the fun, April 1, 1764. By Nathaniel Blifs, M. A. Savilian profeffor of mathematics at Oxford, and aftronomer royal.

We are here informed, that during the courfe of these obfervations, feveral misfortunes happened to our aftronomers. Dr. Bliss was himself unfortunately obliged to wipe his eye at the very time of the contact, being troubled with a watery defluxion on his eyes occafioned by a cold. Mr. Bird was ftationed upon the leads over the new chamber, and was unfortunate enough not to fee the beginning by reafon of a tremor (whether in himself or the eclipfe we know not) until fix feconds later than the time obferved by Mr. Reeve, the affiftant observer; which was March 31ft, 21h 5′ 3′′ apparent time.

Unfortunately, fome time before the middle of the, eclipfe, the hazinefs came fo very thick, that the fun could not be seen

for

for many minutes; but as foon as the clouds began to disperse, Mr. Reeve obferved the lucid parts, but unluckily, did not afcertain the time at either of the four obfervations.

The fun's horizontal diameter, as obferved by Mr. Reeve, on the day before, and on the morning of the eclipse, was 31′ 56′′, being a mean of fix observations not fenfibly differing.

We wish Mr. Reeve would communicate the method of taking a mean of fix obfervations not fenfibly differing.

Art. XXV. and XXVI. are obfervations of the eclipse of the fun, April 1, 1764. By Meff. Hornby and Raper.

Art. XXVII. A table of the places of the comet of 1764, difcovered on the third of January, about eight o'clock in the evening, in the conftellation of the dragon. By Monfieur Charles Meffer, aftronomer at Paris.

Art. XXVIII. Of the parallax of the fun. By Monfieur Pingré.

In this paper (which is a fupplement to a former memoir, on the parallax of the fun, delivered to the Royal Society) M. Pingré, with great care and judgment, determines the fun's hori zontal parallax from the obfervations made by Meff. Maskeline, Mafon, Dixon, and others, to be about 10".

Art. XXIX. An account of the tranfit of Venus. By Chrif tian Mayer, S. J.

Art. XXX. Obfervationes aftronomicæ Chriftiani Mayer, S. J. We have here a very curious fet of observations made upon the eclipses of the moon and fun, March 17, and April 1, 1764, by the late illuftrious aftronomer above-mentioned.

Art. XXXI. Obfervations on the eclipfe of the fun at Chatham, April 1, 1764. By Mr. Mungo Murray.

Art. XXXII. Observations and experiments on different extracts of hemlock. By Michael Morris, M. D. F. R. S.

By the refult of feveral experiments made by Dr. Morris, it appears, that the extract of hemlock prepared at Coimbra in Portugal, contains a far greater quantity of an effential oily falt and refin than the other extracts. And (continues the doctor) as the oils, falts, and refins, are the most active parts of vegetables, may not the well-attefted falutary effects of the Coimbra extract be owing to its greater quantity of these active principles, particularly if we confider the large dofe it has been prefcribed in as thefe active oily falts and refins are soluble in fpirit of wine, we have the means of obtaining them from the extract of our own hemlock in fufficient quantities for ufe, and without fatiguing the ftomach with the nauseous inactive parts of the extract.'

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Art. XXXIII. is an Effay on the ufe of the ganglions of the nerves. By James Johnstone, M. D,

The ganglions are oblong and very hard bodies; their uses have not as yet been well afcertained. The learned J. M. Lancifi fuppofes them muscles fui generis, and, like other mufcles, capable of contraction; by which the nervous spirits are accelerated and impelled.

Art. XXXIV. Contains an account of feveral fiery meteors feen in North America.

[To be concluded in our next. ]

IV. An Account of the Deftruction of the Jefuits in France. By M. D'Alembert. 12mo. Pr. 35. Becket.

HE enlargement of true knowledge and philofophy is, un

a pleafing

mind; but we confefs it receives fome alloy when it is extended to our natural enemies, whofe ignorance and barbarifm are the only causes of our fuperiority over them. We make no apology for applying the word barbarifm even to the French. Every people who are without the ideas of civil and religious liberty, are barbarians. It is not a progrefs or perfection in arts and manufactures, or the affluence of gold and filver, that conftitute civilization; it is the cultivation of the human mind alone that can refcue a people from the imputation of barbarifm. Every voluntary flave is a barbarian; and it is with fome degree of concern we perceive the French, our natural neighbours and enemies, every day emancipating themselves from their intellectual chains, and contending for a parity with Britons,

The perufal of the work before us ought to humble them (if any thing can humble a Frenchman) in their own eyes. To reflect how long they have been flaves to the Jefuits, those tyrants of human reafon and traitors to rational enquiry, ought to ftrike them with confufion, especially as there were not wanting, even in France, men who detected and expofed Jefuitifm, but were rewarded only with perfecution, pains, penalties, and death itself, fometimes accompanied by torture. Mr. D'Alembert has, in this work, moft excellently accounted for this extraordinary phenomenon. He fets out with obferving, that the middle of the prefent century appears deftined to form an æra not only in the hiftory of the human mind, but alfo in the hiftory of states and empires, by the extraordinary events of which we have fucceffively been witneffes. The author then proceeds to give a detail of thofe events; but, like a true Frenchman, he fuppreffes even the

men