3^ i»HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1665. 



the white of an egg or the serum of the blood do under shuilar circumstances, 

 but they were far whiter.* 



The second part of this communication states, that a considerable quantity 

 of grass has often been found in the trachea and bronchia of sheep ; and that 

 the wind-pipe of an ox, which had died of a disease, was stuffed with the same 

 vegetable matter as if it had been thrust there by main force. 



Of a Place in England where, tvithout petrifying Water, Wood is 

 turned into Stone. N° 6, p. 101. 



According to Dr. Plott, the place where the petrified wood commemorated 

 in this paper is found, is a gravelly ground in the parish of Wendlebury in 

 Oxfordshire, not far from the church. The kind of osteocolla mentioned in 

 this paper is found in the rubble-quarries at Heddington in the same county ; 

 when scraped it has the smell of burnt bone. 



Of the [medidnaT] Nature of a certain Stone found in the Indies in the 

 Head of a Serpent. By Philibert Fernati. N" 6, p. 102. 



This communication relates to a superstitious story of a stone found in the 

 head of certain serpents, having the property of healing their venomous bite 

 when applied to the wound. We shall not detain the reader with more parti- 

 culars on this subject. 



Of the Way used in the Mogul's Dominions to maize Saltpetre. From 

 Thefenot's Travels. N" 6, p. 103. 



Saltpetre is found in many places of the East Indies, but chiefly about Agra, 

 and in the villages that heretofore have been numerously inhabited, but are 

 now deserted. They extract it from three sorts of earth, black, yellow, and 

 white. The best is that which is drawn out of the black, for it is free from 

 common salt. They work it in this manner : They make two pits, flat at the 

 bottom, like those wherein common salt is made, one of them having much 

 more compass than the other, they fill that with (the aforesaid) earth, upon 

 which they let water run, and by the feet of people they tread it to the con- 



* In the blood of this patient there appears to have been an over-proportion of serum, rendered 

 whiter than usual by a considerable quantity of new chyle. The manner in which the original title 

 is worded might lead to an erroneous conception; since it was not " milk tliat was found in veins 

 INSTEAD of blood," (p. 100), butblood itself, containing such an excess of the fluids just mentioned 

 as to have a milkr/ appearance. 



