or upper skin, till it becomes as hard as thick leather, and every time the experiment is tried it becomes still easier than before. But if, after it has been very often repeated, the upper skin should grow so callous and horny as to become troublesome, washing the parts affected with very warm water, or hot wine, will bring away all the shrivelled or parched epidermis. The flesh, however, will continue tender and unfit for such business till it has been frequently rubbed over again with the same spirit.

"This preparative may be rendered much stronger and more efficacious, by mixing equal quantities of spirit of sulphur, sal-ammoniac, essence of rosemary, and juice of

onions.

"The bad effects which frequently swallowing red-hot coals, melted sealing wax, rosin, brimstone, and other calcined and inflammable matter, might have had upon his stomach, were prevented by drinking plentifully of warm water and oil, as soon as he left the company, till he had vomited all up again."

My author farther adds, "that any person who is possessed of this secret, may safely walk over burning coals, or redhot plough-shares," (as queen Emma is said to have done,) and fortifies his assertion by the example of blacksmiths and forgemen, "many of whom," he says, "acquire such a degree of callosity, by often handling hot things, that they will carry a glowing bar of iron from the furnace to the anvil in their naked hands, without hurt."

This anecdote was communicated to the author of the Journal des Sçavans, by M. Panthot, doctor of physic, and member of the college at Lyons.

Tavernier says in his Voyages, that he met with a slave, who would suffer himself, for a small reward, to be hung round with heavy chains of iron red-hot, and that he would keep them on till they were quite cold, without the least apparent sense of pain. This slave must certainly have been acquainted with something more powerful than the preceding receipt to resist the strength of fire, as such a weight must considerably increase its activity, and conse quently its penetration.

Whether Mr. Powell will take it kindly of me thus to have published his secret, I cannot tell; but as he now begins to drop into years, has no children that I know of, and may die suddenly, or without making a will, I think it is a great pity so genteel an occupation should become one of the artes perdite, as possibly it may, if proper care is not taken; and therefore hope, after this information, some

true-hearted Englishman will take it up again, for the ho nour of his country, when he reads in the newspapers, Yesterday died, much lamented, the famous Mr. Powell. He was the best, if not the only, fire-eater in the world, and it is greatly to be feared his art is dead with him.

Before that fatal period, I would not, upon any account, be thought to encourage him to set up for himself, or take the poor man's coals out of his mouth, which are to be sure his daily bread; though he may be in the mean time preparing for it, without the least imputation of injustice or ill neighbourhood, by going through a regular course of searings, and now and then a gentle scorch or two, to try how he can stand fire.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

PHILOPYRPHAGUS ASHBURNIENSIS.

1755, Feb.

XIII. Experiments for preserving Water sweet.

Extracts of some trials made by Stephen Hales, D.D. F.R.S. to keep water and fish sweet with lime-water, &c.

APRIL 9, 1754, He put into a seven-gallon cask of water, in the proportion of a pound to a hogshead, some white marble lime.

April 26, It tasted a little of the wood, and smelt somewhat ill, and more so in July 27, when it was poured away. June 15, He put into an 18-gallon cask 18 ounces of unslacked lime-stone from Shropshire.

June 25, The water was sweet, but tasted disagreeably of the cask, and was the same August 24; but October 17, the taste was somewhat worse, and November 12, seemed to smell and taste putrid, but the prevailing taste was from the cask.

He put also into a 9-gallon cask two ounces of the same unslacked lime-stone to a gallon, and found it much the same all along as the former.

With chalk-lime at two pounds to a hogshead, it stunk much, and continued to do so for four months; so that chalk-lime, so much in use, will not preserve water from

putrefaction, though stone-lime does in a great measure, and therefore may be very serviceable at sea.

April 2, He put into a kilderkin, or 18 gallons of pure pond water, a pound of native mineral sulphur in seven lumps.

April 26, Sweet; May 3, began manifestly to stink; May 7, stunk much, and was poured away.

May 8, The kilderkin being scalded, it was filled again with the same pond water, and six pounds of native mineral sulphur put into it.

July 27, It was sweet; October 17, it was discoloured, and in a very small degree fœtid; November 12, the same. Hence native mineral sulphur may be of service to preserve water from great degrees of putrefaction at sea.

Dr. Alston having wrote him word, that he found fish would continue sweet in lime-water 7 weeks and more:

April 19, He put four gudgeons into white marble limewater; May 10, they were sweet, but the flesh pappy when boiled. May 22, they smelt sweet and felt firm, but in boiling dissolved like an anchovy. June 12, one of the gudgeons, though sweet and firm to the touch, dissolved in new-made stone-lime-water, only milk-warm.

June 18, Two small eels skinned, were put into stonelime-water; June 22, one of them, which was firm to handle, when boiled was soft and pappy; June 25, the other eel was the same when boiled.

In order to try whether the lime, which adhered to, and had soaked into the flesh of the fish which had lain in limewater, had the quality of thus dissolving the texture of the flesh in boiling; he boiled a small eel, and a morsel of mutton for ten minutes, in stone-lime-water, when they were boiled enough, and were of a due degree of firmness, and not pappy. A like eel boiled in well-water, was boiled enough in five minutes.

Hence it appears, that the lime does not, in boiling so short a time, dissolve the texture of the flesh into a pap, which must therefore be the effect of unfœtid putrefaction,

But lime-water, made of chalk-lime has very little of an antiseptic quality; for the year before, in the month of May, he put some gudgeons and an eel into common lime-water, and in seven days boiled one of the gudgeons, but found it too putrid to eat, After 28 days he boiled another, and it was boiled almost into indiscernible parts, which shews that it was much putrefied. Dr. Alston kewise informed him, that he put a piece of veal in pounded or slacked stone-lime, which in a week became tough and dry. He

therefore put a piece of veal from half to three-quarters of an inch thick, into chalk-lime on May 10, and on the 31st of the same month it had a putrid smell, and was in the middle red and raw, with a thin hard outside.

Having communicated these trials to Dr. Pringle, (whose trials having been made with chalk-lime water, which is in common use in England, agreed with the last of Dr. Hales's) he observed, that the difference between stone-lime-water and chalk-lime-water might probably consist in this:-the chalk, before calcination, being a highly septic substance, if some of its particles were not fully calcined, these, by mixing with the water, would impart to it some degree of a putrefying quality, contrary to that virtue which the water receives from such parts as are sufficiently burnt. That the same would be the case of shells, which are also septics, and therefore that the lime-water, made either of chalk or shells, would prove more or less antiseptic, or even continue septic, according to the degree of calcination. He added, that as all his experiments relating to the antiseptic quality of lime-water were made in a furnace, heated to the degree of human blood, viz. to near 100 on Fahrenheit's thermometer, the uncalcined parts of the lime would, in that state, become more active in promoting putrefaction, than when the trials were made in cold water.

And indeed it must be owned, that when any experiments are made on medicinal subjects, out of the body, the nearer they can be made to the heat of the blood, and to other circumstances, those substances must undergo in the first passages, the more just the inferences will be, that are drawn from those experiments.

In regard to that quality of lime-water, in preserving fish longer sweet than flesh, Dr. Pringle took notice, that he doubted it was a common mistake, to account fish a more corruptible substance than the flesh of land animals; for although fish might become sooner too stale for eating, than most flesh meats, yet that fish did not so soon rise to a rank degree of putrefaction, as flesh, and therefore that the former would be kept longer tolerably sweet than the latter, by any kind of antiseptic.

1755, July.

XIV. Proposal to correct Spirituous Liquors with Vinegar.

MR. URBAN, July 28, 1755. THE Bishop of Worcester, Dr. Hales, and several others, have given sufficient proofs of the bad effects of drinking spirituous liquors; and though on board our men-of-war, the sailors and marines are seldom allowed them without being first mixed with about three times the quantity of water, if I am rightly informed, yet I have good reason to believe, that if a proper quantity of vinegar was to be added to them, it would still be the more efficacious to prevent the pernicious effects of the spirits, and would brace up their weak fibres, and strengthen the stomach, and would also be of the greatest advantage in the hot countries, be of service in the sea scurvy, and prevent putrid and malignant fevers.

I would also remark that the virtues of vinegar were well known to the ancient Romans, who made vinegar and water the constant drink of their soldiers, which rendered them so strong and able to face their enemies; whereas our army is greatly enfeebled by the use of spirituous liquors alone.

I have given one large spoonful of vinegar, mixed with four large spoonfuls of brandy, and about three times as much water, and have found it very refreshing, grateful to the taste, and agreeable to the stomach, and even in cases where the stomach has been impaired by drinking spirituous liquors, and could hardly retain any thing.

I wish some gentleman of note would make some experiments of this method, and if it were found to succeed, would oblige our sailors, marines, and soldiers to use it; for whatever method would contribute to make our men more strong and hardy, and more able to endure labour and fatigue, would certainly be of the greatest advantage to us, and more especially in time of war.

1755, Aug.

Yours, &c.

J. N.

XV. Manner of hatching Chickens in Egypt.

THIS secret, which the Bermeans reveal to none but their children, consists not in the structure of the oven, but