230 GILBEKT WHITE OF SELBOKNE 1791 



To B. Marsham. 



Selborne, Feb. 25th, 1791. 



Dear Sir, — It was elegantly remarked on our common 

 friend, and my quondam neighbour Doctor Stephen Hales, 

 by one who has written his character in Latin, that — 

 " scientiam philosophicam usibus humanis famulari jussit." 

 The observation was just, and the assertion no inconsiderable 

 compliment : for undoubtedly speculative enquiries can bear 

 no competition with practical ones, where the latter profess 

 never to lose sight of utility. 



As I perceive You loved the good old man, I do not know 

 how I can amuse You better than by sending you the follow- 

 ing anecdotes respecting him, some of which may not have 

 fallen within your observation. His attention to the inside 

 of Ladies' tea-kettles, to observe how far they were incrusted 

 with stone (to;phus lehetinus Linnsei) that from thence he 

 might judge of the salubrity of the water of their wells — 

 his advising water to be showered down suspicious wells 

 from the nozle of a garden watering-pot in order to dis- 

 charge damps, before men ventured to descend ; his directing 

 air-holes to be left in the out-walls of ground-rooms, to 

 prevent the rotting of floors and joists; his earnest dis- 

 suasive to young people, not to drink their tea scalding hot ; 

 his advice to water-men at a ferry, how they might best 

 preserve and keep sound the bottoms or floors of their 

 boats ; his teaching the house-wife to place an inverted tea- 

 cup at the bottom of her pies and tarts to prevent the 

 syrop from boiling over, and to preserve the juice; his 

 many though unsuccessful attempts to find an adequate 

 succedaneum for yeast or barm, so difficult to be procured 

 in severe winters, and in many lonely situations; his 

 endeavour to destroy insects on wall fruit-trees by quick- 

 silver poured into holes bored in their stems; and his 

 experiments to dissolve the stone in human bodies, by, as 



