288 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1668. 



the milk into the breast has much affinity with this of the urine into the blad- 

 der; the sudden pressing whereof into the paps after the nurses drinking ordi- 

 nary milk could no more be explained by the ordinary doctrine of circulation 

 than this of the urine into the bladder, till the shorter cut was hit upon by the 

 ductus thoracicus ; though ordinarily it may be strained in from the arteries, as 

 the serum also in the kidneys; only in a milk-flood nature finds some other 

 channel there, as here in a water-flood. Lastly, Sometimes things are shed 

 forth at the nipples, almost as surprising as this we have spoken of at the neck 

 of the bladder. 



Account of some Booh. N" 40, p. 805. 



I. Joh. Hevilii Cometographia. Dantzick, An. l668. 



In this curious and learned volume the illustrious author has with great in- 

 dustry endeavoured to explain the whole nature of comets, their place, parallaxes, 

 distances from the earth, beginning and end, the several appearances of their 

 heads and trains, with their admirable motion ; and all this by means of one 

 constant hypothesis, viz. their motion in a straight line, and their generation 

 from vapours issuing from the sun and planets ; by which he judges that all the 

 phaBuomena and questions touching comets hitherto known, may be rationally 

 and conveniently explained and demonstrated : All illustrated by 38 schemes in 

 folio, engraven by the author himself; as the whole book has been printed at 

 his own charges. To which are added both a particular explication of the comets 

 which appeared An. l652, l66l, l664, l665 ; and a history of all the comets 

 recorded by historians, philosophers and astronomers, from the Noachical de- 

 luge unto this day, enriched with the author's notes and animadversions, and a 

 general table, representing as it were in one view the most remarkable particu- 

 lars observed in all comets, viz. concerning the time of their first apparition, 

 their duration, place, motion direct or retrograde, slow or swift; the size, figure 

 and colour of their heads, and the magnitude, shape and position of their 

 tails. 



II. Renati Descartes Epistolae; Pars I et II. Londini, An. l668, in 4to. 

 Though some few of these letters were by the author himself written in Latin, 



yet the far greater part of them having been written in French, they are now 

 come abroad all translated into Latin, for the benefit of those that are unskilful 

 in the other language. They contain many philosophical questions and matters 

 of all sorts, and an explication of many difficulties to be met with in the other 

 works of the illustrious author ; and were written to some of the most eminent 

 persons for knowledge and learning of this age. They relate to a great variety 

 of subjects, geometrical, arithmetical, musical, optical, mechanical, physiolo- 

 gical, medical, metaphysical and moral. 



