water that dribbled down the sides, and tasting the moisture by dipping in their fingers. I went to them, and found them Germans. They were very obliging; and, as I understood the language, informed me they were very well versed in searching atter mines, which by thus tasting the water they could discover. I mentioned what I had heard of the divining-rod, in use on the Mendip Hills, in Somersetshire, which bends when held over places that coutain metallic ore; they said that might well be, for a piece of gold, silver, or any metal, suspended on the end of a very slender switch, when carried over a mine of the same metal, would be sò attracted as to bend the end of the stick. Some time after, I happened to be at a silversmith's at Bath, who had a very curious pair of scales, inclosed in a glass case. I admire them; and he said they would weigh to the 200th part of a grain; and there lay in the window a block of solid silver, about six inches square and two inches thick. What the abovementioned persons told me at Scarborough came into my head, and I thought this a good opportunity to try how far what they said was true. I, therefore, had a shilling put into one scale, and the beam, which was about 18 inches long, made perfectly level by weights in the other scale; then I introduced the block of silver under the scale that had the shilling, and the beam dropped at that end a full quarter of an inch, and stood there until the block of silver was removed, when it immediately returned to the equipoize and level it was before: and this we repeated several times, and it always answered the same. These curious scales were inclosed in the glass case, and the door shut, at every experiment. The other matter, I think, may be made useful for keeping metal pipes or boilers from the furring, or stony excrescence, that lodges from boiling water often in them. A friend of mine at Rochester put a common flat shell of an oyster into a new tea-kettle, and kept it in two or three years. During all the time the shell was in the tea-kettle, the tea-kettle gathered no fur, but all the furring settled on the oyster shell, which I have in my possession now, and which is about two inches thick, and something bigger than it was when put in, and perfectly smooth at the bottom, and where at the edge it had frour time to time slipped against the side of the tea-kettle, in appearance like a hone you set razors on; but on the top of the shell the fur was like any thing boiling up, curly and uneven. The water there comes from chalky lands. I live in Essex, and have tried the shell, which also gathered the fur, but of a different ap pearance, being more like smooth sand or gravel; but the shell increased in thickness. If this can be turned to account, in respect to keeping boilers and pipes clear, or shewing the nature of the land through which the streams have passed, I shall be happy. 1791, March. H. INDEX TO THE SECOND VOLUME. ABRAXAS, 41. Accents, dissertation on, 385. Acta Diurna, 1. A. Adages, Greek and Latin, 162, 199. Adam, his beard, 293;-his voice, 294. Addison, on Paradise Lost, 360, 368;-his observation on Virgil's Enigma, antiquity of the, 40. Ajax, the silence of, in the infernal shades, 164. Allegories in ancient history accounted for, 95. Analogy of language, remarks on, 173, note. Apuleius, 358. Arabian Tales, on the authenticity of, 382. Aristophanes, 328. Articles, on the promiscuous use of, 333. Assassin, origin of the word, 146. Astle on Writing, 281. Auca, the signification of, 113. Aurora Borealis, 450. Authors, on the mistakes of, 157. VOL II. M m B. Baragouin, etymology of, 132. Barometer, the utility of, in agriculture, 523. Barrigenæ, who, 129, 131. Bath waters, phenomenon of the, 488. Bathurst, Dr. Ralph, his death, 495. Baudius, his Latin verses addressed to his friends, 171. Beards, extraordinary remark relating to, 293. Bentham, on Saxon and Gothic Architecture, 249. Bentley, a passage from one of his Sermons, 246;—on Paradise Bible, various English translations of, 116;-the translators of, Bibles, Manuscript, 16. Biblical difficulties obviated, 93. Blayney, Dr. his account of the collation and revision of the Eng- Bleak, on the word, 238. Bones, on the brittleness of, in frosts, 494;-whether only sub- Bonfire, 202. Borsholder, 201. Bourn, whence derived, 356. Breviaries, 23. Bull's blood, a poison among the ancients, 414. Burton, his Latin Preface intended for the History of Leicester- C. Cat in the pan, to turn, 66. Catalogue of the Harleian Library, 8. Catalogues, book, the utility of, 9, 10. Cats, Electricity in, 437. Catullus, critical remark on, 158. Cedars, on the growth of, in England, 512. Central fire in the earth, 420. Cervantes, 358. Cesena, accident which happened to a woman at, 402.. Chesable, what, 109, note. Chesnut-tree at Tamworth, 487. Child, gigantic, account of, 519. Cicero, on a passage in his treatise De Senectute, 125;-De Ora Classic authors perverted, 87. Cleveland, 312. Cochineal, history and culture of, 423. Colours, passages relating to, often obscure, 269. Cowley, 322. Crashaw, epitaph by, 243;-imitated by Pope, 324 Crowder, as cunning as, 64. D. Daisy, derivation of, 111. De Imitatione Christi, inquiry concerning the real author of that Despair, as described by the poets, 338. Devil's Verses, 161. Dew, on the phenomenon of, 472. Dido, the silence of, in the infernal shades, 164. Digestion, experiments on, 426, Divining-rod, 527. Drayton, 312, 321, 326. Dreams, the causes of, 391;-Joy and grief in, why superior to Dryden, on the English Language, 77;-his description of Night, 478. E. Earing, explanation of the word, 89. Earthquakes, how produced, 446. Eikon Basilike, 54. Electricity in cats, 437. Elephants bones dug up in England, 460. Ellipsis, instances of, in Shakespeare, 127;-observation on that. figure, 140. English language, very vague, 77. Evaporation, 482. Expressions, local, illustrated, 368. F. Fathers, manuscripts of the, 22. . M m 2 |