368 Royal Society of London. 



May 7- The President in the chair. — A papeT from Mr. 

 Carlisle was read on spontaneous mortification in the human 

 subject, similar to the case detailed by him last vear. A 

 female about 19 years of age was seized with a slight pain, 

 accompanied with numbness and insensibility, in her foot, 

 which gradually ascended to the oroin, and in six weeks 

 occasioned her deafh. When she died her body was opened, 

 and the valves of the heart were found so imperfect, as not 

 to be capable of conveying the blood to the aorta, whence 

 it might circulate to the extremities. During the progress of 

 the mortification, the patient was occasionally in such a low 

 state as to appear on the eve of expiring. 



A letter from a gentleman at Penzance to Mr. Giddy 

 was also read, detailing some singular appearances in the 

 strata found in sinking a shaft for a tin mine in Cornwall. 

 Pyrites, schist, and chlorite alternately occurred, at different 

 depths; but the most remarkable circumstance was that of 

 a stratum of pebbles found immediately contiguous to the 

 tin, and at the immense depth of seventy-eight fathoms 

 below the surface of the earth. The letter was accompanied 

 with an accurate drawing;, representuig the relative position 

 of the different strata, as they appeared on sinking to the 

 vein of tin. 



May 14. — The attention of the societv was occupied with 

 a letter to the President, from Mr. Knight, on some pecu- 

 liarities not hitherto observed in the domestic oeconomy of 

 bees and wasps. The principal circumstances observed by 

 our author were the excursions and examinations performed 

 by bees previous to their hivins;; their investigations on the 

 bark and hollow parts of old trees; their residence there 

 for some days ; and their direct route to and from their hives. 

 Hence Mr. Knight inferred that bees have a language of 

 iileas. He observed that bees form political connections; 

 thiit two hives wsU associate together in the same place for 

 ten or eleven days as friends, and afterWards quarrel and 

 separate. This fact, however, is equally as explicable on the 

 supposition of the ignorance and stupidity of these insects, 

 as on that of their sagacity. It appears, according to Mr. 

 Knight's, observations^ that neither bees nor waps will 



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