92 Natural Hist Dry. 



Natural History. — At day- break on the 3d of January 

 I8O0, an enormous fish was descried at half cable's length 

 from Ptnrynquay, steering towards the town, and three boats, 

 under the direction of captain Dunn, were manned to attack 

 him : the first he enclosed, as it were in a pond, formed by 

 a circular curve from head to tail, without doing any injury, 

 A man then courageously cut a hole in the dorsal fin, through 

 which he rove a hooked rope. Upon feeling this, the fish 

 attempted to put to sea, hut being diverted by some hard 

 blows on his snout, he sheered towards the Falmouth road. 

 A three-inch rope doubled was then parbuckled round him, 

 which he instantaneously snapped. A hawser from the quay 

 was next applied to him \ when, after dragging a sloop's 

 anchor, tearing up a moorstone post on the quay, and stav- 

 ing a "boat, he was brought into shoal water, and, it being 

 ebb tide, subdued. He was afterwards towed round by three 

 boats, and with the tackle of a sand-barge and the exertions 

 of 20 men and three horses, he was drawn upon the slip of 

 colonel Heame's quay, where he remained a few davs for the 

 amusement of the curious. He measures 31 feet long, 19 

 feet round, 9\ feet high, f j feet mouth. It proved to be a 

 male of the Squalus genus, being the Squalus maximus, 

 the Basking Shark, or Sun-fish of Pennant. It abounds in 

 the Irish Channel and on the west coast of Scotland. It is 

 generaiiy seen in pairs. Accordingly the mate of this animal 

 was observed in St. Keverne Bay, next day, by the Wal- 

 singham packet. - 



Mr. Taylor the Platonist announces, that he has made 

 some very important discoveries in that branch of the mathe^ 

 matics relating to infinitesimals and infinite series. One 

 of these discoveries consists in the ability of ascertaining 

 thu last term of a great variety of infinite series, whether 

 such scries are composed of whole numbers or fractions. 

 Mr. Taylor further announces, as the result of these dis- 

 coveries, that he is able to demonstrate, that all the leading 

 propositions in Dr. Wallis's Arithmetic of Infinites are false ; 

 and that the doctrine of Fluxions is founded on false princi- 

 ples, and, as well as the Arithmetic of Infinites, is a most 

 -^niarkable instance of the possibility of deducing true con- 

 3 elusions 



