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times, not only with the fame event, but I alfo found, that when 

 the letters had been fo traced, and tiie paper was brought fo near 

 the fire as to warm it, the places where the letters had been traced, 

 were immediately inflamed, and the flame fpread farther over the 

 paper. 



Soon after this, a friend of mine, who was on his travels, fent 

 me, by a meflenger, a fmall veflel full of water, in which was a 

 fubllance about half as big as a pea, and informed me that it was a 

 mineral, and called natural light ; being a part of what had been 

 given to a chymifl in the town where he then was, by a perfon who 

 had received it as a prefent from fome other, and the half of it was 

 now fent to me. My friend alfo informed me, that he had himfelt 

 feen, that when taken out of the water and laid in a perlbn's hand, 

 a vapour and fmoke ilfued from it, and, upon being carried in the 

 hand into a dark place, it emitted a light fimilar to that produced 

 from rotten wood. Upon viewing this, I immediately judged it to 

 be the fame kind of fubflance as that which I had received from the 

 German gentleman ; for, upon viewing it with the naked eye, and 

 trying the fame experiment of its efFe6l, the whole were as exadlly 

 alike, as if it had been broken off from the fame piece ; I there- 

 upon fet about a diligent examination of this fubllance, and noted 

 the following particulars in it. 



I poured the water and this fubflance in it out of the veflel, and 

 cut off, while it was under the water, a piece or particle, about 

 the fize of a pin's head, having firfl prepared a glafs to receive it 

 and make my obfervations. Having put this particle on the glafs, 

 I immediately placed it before the microfcope, and law lying about 

 it a fmall portion of fome kind of moiflure, and the particle itfelf 

 appeared like a dark body, excepting only, that in two places, there 

 was a fmall luminous appearance : I alfo faw a great number of 

 particles, which I deemed to be globules, in violent agitation one 

 among another ; thefe globules were collected in two places on the 



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