VOL. v.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 480 



till it was concluded to be stark dead, and to have been so for a good while, 

 was nevertheless resolutely hindered by me from being thrown away, till I had 

 tried what could be done by keeping it all night in a glass-body uj)on a warm 

 digestive furnace. Whereupon this viper was found the next morning not 

 only to be revived, but to be very lively, so as to invite me to make with her, 

 without seeking for another, the following experiment. 



We put her into a tall glass-body, fitted with a cork to the orifice of it, and 

 depressed with a weight, so that she could come at no air. In this case we ob- 

 served her from time to time ; and after she had been ducked a while, she lay 

 with very little motion for a considerable space of time. At an hour and a 

 quarter she often put out her black tongue : at near four hours she appeared 

 much alive, and as I remember, about that time also put out her tongue, 

 swimming all this while, as far as we observed, above the bottom of the water. 

 At the end of about seven hours and more, she seemed yet to have some life in 

 her, her posture being manifestly changed in the glass, from what it was a 

 while before ; unless that might proceed from some difference made in her 

 body as to gravity and levity. Not long after she appeared quite dead, her 

 head and tail hanging down motionless, and directly towards the bottom of the 

 vessel, whilst the middle of the body floated as much as the above-mentioned 

 cork would permit it. 



I must here observe, that though some of the above-mentioned animals seem, 

 by the relations we have given of them, to have been a little sooner destroyed 

 by drowning, than any we have mentioned were by our engine, that is no sure 

 proof that suffocation kills animals faster than the deprivation of air they 

 are exposed to in our engine. For in drowning, that which destroys is applied 

 to its full vigour at the very first, and all at once; whereas, our receivers being 

 made for several purposes, the deprivation of the air, that they make, cannot 

 be made all at once, but the air must be pumped out by degrees ; so that till 

 the last the receiver will be but partly emptied. For confirmation of which, I 

 have this to allege, that having in the presence of some virtuosi provided for the 

 purpose a very small receiver, wherein a mouse could live some time, if the air 

 were left in it, we were able to evacuate it at one suck, and thus, to the wonder 

 of the beholders, to kill the animal in less than half a minute. 



An Account of three Books. N" 62, p. 2032, 



I. De Anglorum Gentis Origine Disceptatio, Auth. Rob. Sheringhamo 

 Cantabrigiensi, Colleg. Gonvilii et Caii Socio. Cantabrigiae, 1670, in 8vo. 



The learned author of this discourse inquires into the origin both of the 

 ancient Britons, and of the Angli or English ; having first described the situa- 



VOL. I, 3 Q 



