6% The Statural H'ijlory 



by was tailed to their afliftance, who as unhappily as willing- 

 ly defcending to them* alfo fuddenly fell down upon them, and 

 dyed : To whom,after fome deliberation taken, another ventures 

 down with a roap about his middle, but he fell from the Lad- 

 der in juft the fame manner, and chough prefently drawn up by 

 the people above , yet was fcarcely recover'd in an hour or 

 more. 



33. And now again but lately, on the 20 th of Augufi 1674. 

 upon a buckets falling cafually into a well, on the fouth fide of 

 the Town, about a furlong from the former, a woman calls her 

 neighbor, a lufty ftrong man, to go down by a Ladder to fetch 

 up her bucket, who altogether unmindful of the former acci- 

 dent, foon granted (as it proved) her unhappy requeft ; for 

 by that time he came half way down, he fell dead from the 

 Ladder into the water : the woman amazed, calls another of 

 her Neighbors, a lufty young man of about eight and twenty, 

 who haftily defcending to give his afliftance, much about the 

 fame place alfo fell from the Ladder, and dyed, without giving 

 the leaft fign of his change, fo fuddenly mortal are the damps of 

 this earth. 



34. Dr. Boat , in his Natural Biftory of Ireland, gives ac- 

 count of an accident that happen'd at Dublin, in a well there fo 

 very like ours,that they fcarcely differ in any circumftance. And 

 we have a relation in our Pbilofoplical Tranfaftions p , of fuch kind 

 of damps that happen'd in Coal-mines belonging to the Lord 

 Sinclair in Scotland. Now though we muft not conclude from 

 hence, that here muft therefore needs be Coal ; yet, conjoyned 

 with others I know hereabout, I take it not to be {o unlikely a 

 fign, but that of all others I know of in the County, I guefs this 

 may be the moft probable place. 



35. For though I think thofe poyfonous and killing fteams 

 may indeed more immediatly have their rife from a Pyrites, or 



. Coperatftone, found here in great plenty where-ever they dig ; a 

 piece whereof brought me by a friend from thence, upon taft, 

 proved a Vitriol fo ftrong and virulent, that prefently from my 

 mouth it foafYe&ed my ftomach, that I confefs for a while I was 

 fearful of danger : yet, it being the common confent of Natu~ 

 rahfts, that fuch Pyrites are nothing but the efiorefcence of Mine- 



o- Cap. iZ.feft. 4. p Ybihf.Tranfatt. Num. 3. 



rals. 



