PEAT AND ITS USES 33 



" July 10. The fresh hazell sticks were produced, 

 wherewith the divining experiment was tried and 

 found faulty. 



" September 4. Sir K. Digby brought in a letter 

 from a friend of his in Florence, written in 1656, 

 which treats of a petrified city and inhabitants."* 



Instances of this sort could be quoted almost 

 indefinitely to show the extent of the prevailing 

 ignorance of natural phenomena, and a great debt 

 of gratitude is owed to the Royal Society even in 

 those early days for their fearless investigations. A 

 source that they used largely for extending their 

 knowledge was to make inquiries of sea captains and 

 of residents in foreign countries to confirm or refute 

 the astonishing stories that were brought from 

 abroad to this country. Sprat, in his History of the 

 Royal Society, prints a long list of the questions 

 addressed by the Society in its early days to Sir 

 Philiberto Vernatti, resident in Batavia, and of his 

 answers. The first of the questions is : 



places soe mortally, that the murderer took sanctuary, the 

 wounded bled three days without intermission ; fell into frequent 

 convulsions and swounings; the chirurgeons despayring of his 

 recovery, forsook him. His comrade came to me, and desired 

 me to demand justice from the Duke upon the murderer (as sup- 

 posing him already dead) ; I sent for his bloud and dress'd it, 

 and bad his comrade haste back and swathe up his wounds with 

 cleane linen. He lay a mile distant from my house, yet before 

 he could gett to him, all his wounds were closed, and he began 

 visibly to be comforted. The second day the mariner came to 

 me, and told me his friend was perfectly well, but his spirits soe 

 exhausted he durst not adventure soe long a walke. The third 

 day the patient came himself to give me thanks, but appeared 

 like a ghost; noe bloud left in his body." 

 * Weld, History of the Royal Society. 



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