6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1665. 



Of a peculiar Lead Ore of Germany * and the Use of it. N" 1, p. 10. 



Among several minerals lately sent from Germany was a kind of lead-ore, more 

 considerable than all the rest, because of its singular use for essays upon the 

 cuppel, seeing that there is not any other metal mixed with it. It is found in 

 the Upper Palatinate, at a place called Freyung, and there are two sorts of it^ 

 one of which is a kind of crystalline stone, and almost all good lead; the other 

 not so rich, and more farinaceous. By the information, coming along with it, 

 they are fetched, not from under the ground, but, the mines of that place having 

 lain long neglected, by reason of the wars of Germany and the increase of 

 waters, the people, living thereabout, take it from what their forefathers had 

 thrown away, and had lain long in the open air. 



Of an Hungarian Bolus, of the same [rnedicinal] Effect with the Bolus 

 Armenus. Anonymous. N^A^p.!!, 



The bolar earths were formerly in high repute as medicines, but they are 

 rarely prescribed by modern physicians. In whatever part of the globe they are 

 found, their effects upon the human body are the same. 



Of the New American Whale-Fishing about Bermudas. By a Seaman, 



N" 1, p. 11. 



Though many attempts at mastering the whales of these seas had been un- 

 successful, by reason of their extraordinary fierceness and swiftness, yet it had 

 been lately undertaken; and fit persons being out at sea seventeen times, and 

 fastening their weapons a dozen times, killed two old female whales, and three 

 cubs. The length of one of the old ones from the head to the extremity of the 

 tail was 88 feet; its tail 23 feet broad, the swimming fin 26 feet long^ and the 

 gills three feet long, with large bends underneath from the nose to the navel ; 

 on her after-part, a fin on the back, and the inside inlaid with fat like the caul 

 of a hog. The other old one was about 6o feet long. Of the cubs, one was 33, 

 the other two were about 25 or 26 feet long. Their shape was very sharp 

 behind, like the ridge of a house ; the head pretty bluff, and full of bumps on 

 both sides ; the back perfectly black, and the belly white. Their swiftness and 

 force are surprising : one of them, that had been struck, towed the boat after 

 him for six or seven leagues in three quarters of an hour. When wounded 

 they make a hideous roaring, at which all the whales within hearing flock to the 



* The spathose lead ores are common in many parts of Germany, and are, in general, remarkably 

 rich. 



