VOL. II.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 21 1 



To find on what day of the month the sun enters into any sign of the Zo- 

 diac. For this we give the following verse ; 



Charles brought content, divers effects ensue, 

 Envy, fear, dolour, danger, bid adieu. 

 Here again, the 12 words relate to the 12 months, March being the first. 

 To the number of the letter of the alphabet, the word begins with, add 7. Ex- 

 ample. — Fear is the word for October, and F the sixth letter ; therefore the 

 suns enters into the 8th sign, to wit Scorpio, on the 13th of October. 



A71 Account oj some Books. N" 30, p. 575. 



I. Petri Lambeci Lib. Primus Prodromi Historiae Literariae, &c. 



II. Thomae Cornelii Consentini Progymnasmata Physica. 



III. Les Essays Physiques du Sieur De Launay, Liv. premier. 



IV. Francisci du Laurens Specimina Mathematica, duobus Libris comprehensa. 



New Experiments concerning the Relation between Light and Air in 

 shining JVbod and Fish. By Mr. Boyle. N° 31, p. 581. 



Exper. J . On putting a piece of shining rotten wood, of the size of a groat * 

 or less, into the receiver of a pneumatic engine or air-pump, and the pump 

 being set to work, we observed not, during the five or six first exsuctions of 

 the air, that the splendour of the included wood was lessened, but about the 

 seventh suck it seemed to grow a little more dim, and afterwards, losing of its 

 light more and more as the air was further pumped out, at length, about the 

 tenth exsuction, we could not perceive any light at all to proceed from the 

 wood. 



Exper. 2. We let in the air again by degrees, and had the pleasure to see the 

 seemingly extinguished light revive, so fast and perfectly, that it looked to us 

 all almost like a little flash of lightning, and the splendour of the wood seemed 

 Vather greater than before it was put into the receiver. On including the wood 

 in a very small receiver of clear glass, it was found that in this the light would 

 begin to grow faint at the second or third exsuction of the air, and at the sixth 

 or seventh would quite disappear. 



Exper. 3. To discover whether this luminousness of the wood would more 

 resemble a coal, or the life of a perfect animal, in being totally and finally ex- 

 tinguished in case the air were kept from it a few minutes, or else the life of 

 insects, which in the exhausted receiver I had observed to lose all appearance of 

 its continuing, and that for a much longer time than a few minutes, and yet 



* A silver coin then in use, rather less than a sixpence. 

 DI)2 



