322 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



ceding night. A bottle of linseed 

 oil had been left on a table, close 

 to which a chest stood, which con- 

 tained some coarse cotton cloth j 

 in the course of the night the bottle 

 of oil was thrown down, and 

 broken on .the chest (by rats most 

 probably), :«id part of the oil ran 

 into the chest, and on the cloth : 

 when the chest was opened in the 

 morning, the cloth was found in a 

 very strong degree of heat, and 

 partly reduced to tir.der, and the 

 wood of the box discoloured, as 

 from burning. After a most mi- 

 nute examination, no appearance 

 of any other inflammable substance 

 could be found, and how the cloth 

 could have been reduced to the 

 condition in whi'ch it was found, 

 no one could even conjecture. The 

 idea which occurred, and which 

 made Mr. Golding so uneasy, was, 

 that of an attempt to burn the ar- 

 sfual. Thus matters v;ere when I 

 joined him, and when he told me 

 the story and shewed me the re- 

 mainder of the cloth. It luckily 

 happened, that in some chemical 

 amusemo)its, 1 had occasion to con- 

 sult Hopson's book a very few days 

 before, and met with this particu- 

 lar passage, which I read with a 

 determination to pursue the expe- 

 riment at some future period, but 

 had neglected to do so. The mo- 

 ment I saw the cloth, the similarity 

 of circumstances struck me so for- 

 cibly, tliat I sent for the book and 

 shewed it to Mr. Golding, who a- 

 greed with mc, that it appeared 

 •jufficient to account for the acci- 

 dent. However, to convince our- 

 selves, we took a piece of the same 

 "kind of cloth, wetted it with linseed 

 "oil, and put it into a box, which 

 "#33 locked and carried to his quar- 



ters. In about three hours the box 

 began to smoke, when, on opening 

 it, the cloth was found exactly in 

 the same condition as that which 

 had given us so much uneasiness in 

 the morning ; and on opening the 

 cloth, and admitting the external 

 air, it burst into fire. This was 

 sufficiently convincing: however, to 

 make it more certain, the experi- 

 ment was three times tried, and 

 with the same success." 



P. S. The passage Mr. Humfries 

 alludes to, is in page 629 of Hop- 

 son's Chymistry, where, in a note, 

 you will find mention made of a 

 set of chymical experiments made 

 on inflammable substances by a Mr. 

 Georgi, of the Imperial academy 

 of Petersburgh, in consequence ot 

 the burning of a Russian frigate at 

 Cronstadt, in 1781, although no 

 fire had been made on board of her 

 for five days before. 



Description of a rieiv species of warl- 

 ler, called the Wood Wren, observ- 

 ed in May, 1792, by Mr. Tho- 

 mas Lamb, A. L. S. from the 

 Transactions of the Linnean So- 

 ciety. 



THE length is five inches and a 

 half ; bill horn-colour ; up- 

 per mandible bent at the tip, and 

 rather longer than the under ; irides 

 hazel ; nostrils beset with bristles ; 

 top of the head, neck, back, and 

 tail coverts olive-green ; throat and 

 cheeks yellow, paler on the breast ; 

 belly and vent of a most beautiful 

 silvery white ; through the eye 

 passes a yellow line ; wings and 

 coverts brown^ edged with green ; 

 the tail consi^ of twelve feathers, 

 rather forkejf and of a brown co- 

 ' lour. 



