296 December 1748. 



of punch and other ftrong liquors in fummer, 

 when it is very hot; by that means the veins in 

 the diaphragm contraft, and the blood grows 

 thick. Towards the end of October and the be- 

 ginning of November, the weather is apt to alter 

 very fuddenly, fo that heat and cold change fe- 

 veral times a day. When the people during 

 this changeable weather are in the open air, they 

 commonly get this difeafe. It is likewife certain 

 that the air is more unwholefome one year than 

 another, which depends upon the heat, and other 

 circumftances : this peculiar quality of the air 

 muft of courfe produce a pleurify. It is re- 

 markable, that both in the year 1728, and in 

 the prefent, when fo many people died at Penn's 

 nccky few died at Raccoon, though the two places 

 are near each other, and feem to have the fame 

 foil and climate. But there is this difference, 

 that Penns neck lies remarkably low, and Rac- 

 coon pretty high. The people in the former 

 place have fettled between marflies and fwamps, 

 in which the water flagnates and putrifies ; and 

 mod of thefe places are covered with trees, by 

 which means the wet is {hut up ftill more, and 

 near fuch marlhes are the houfes. Laftly, the 

 water at Penn's neck is not reckoned fo good as 

 that in Raccoon. It likewife becomes brackifh in 

 feveral little rivers, when the Delaware, during 

 the tide, rifes very high, and runs up into them. 

 On the banks of thefe rivulets live many of the 

 Swedes, and take water for common ufe from 

 them. 



December the ^d. THIS morning I fet out 

 for Philadelphia, where I arrived in the evening. 



WILD 



