i< therefore tlie ascribing them either to electricity, or 

 any one cause, exclusive of the rest : whereas some lire 

 owing to each of these causes : some to several of them, 

 -acting conjointly. 



21. We have inflammable vap6urs in England, in 

 three or four different places. 



One who accurately observed it, gives the following 

 particular account of a burning well. 



" In "the latter end of February, I went to see a 

 spring in .the- road, which leads from Wigan to Warring- 

 ton. When we came to it, and applied a lighted candle 

 to the surface of the water, there was suddenly a large 

 and vigorous flame produced. But having filled a cup 

 AV ith water at the {taming place, and held a lighted can- 

 dle to it, it went out. Yet the water at that place boiled 

 like water over a lire : though when I put my hand into 

 it, it did not feel so much as warm. This boiling seems 

 to proceed from some sulphureous fumes, the spring be- 

 ing not 'above forty yards from a coal-pit, and all the 

 country for many miles round, being underlaid willi 

 coal. 



" When the water was drained away, I applied the 

 candle to the surface of the earth where the water burned 

 before. The fumes took tire and burnt very bright and 

 vigorous, tht3 flame, ascending a foot and a half from the 

 ground : and the basis of it was as broad as a man's hat 

 v.t the brims, It was not discoloured like that of sul- 

 phur, nor had any scent. I ordered a bucket of wa- 

 ter to be poured ou the ftr-e, and it. was immediately 



2?. There was a spp'mg of the same kind at Brosely, 

 sueav Wenlock, in the county of Salop. It was disco- 

 vered in June, 1711, by a terrible noise in the night, 

 which awaked several people in their beds, who desiring 

 to know what it was., rose up, ami coming to a boggy 

 place under a little hill about two hundred yards from 

 the Severn, perceived a mighty rumbling and shaking of 

 the earth, and a little water boiling up through the grass. 



VOL. in. G 



