490 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 67O, 



tion, latitude, form, fertility, and temper of the inhabitants of this island. 

 In his inquiry he finds nothing that may be more certain, in so great obscurity, 

 than that the old Britons were descended from the Trojans, by Brutus, the off- 

 spring of ^Eneas ; and that the Angli are the race of the Gothic nation, which 

 he makes the offspring not of Japhet, but of Shem : further, that the Getae or 

 Goths passed through Scythia into Scandia and Sarmatia, and from Scandia 

 into the isles of the Baltic Sea and Germany ; but that under that great Cap- 

 tain Filemer they made an excursion again into Asia, and having there ejected 

 out of their seats the Magogaean Scythians and the Cimmerians, settled them- 

 selves and their empire in Asia; whence the Saxons, Getes and Angles, the 

 forefathers of the English, were brought back again into Germany, to the 

 ancient seat of the Getes, under the conduct of that famous Woden, the pro- 

 genitor of the chief kings of Europe, about the year 29 10. 



II. A Vindication of Hydrologia Chymica, by William Sympson, M. D. 

 London, 1670. 



A vindication of a book replete with chemical errors. 



III. A Discourse in Vindication of Descartes's System, by M. Des Four- 

 neillis : to which is annexed the System General of the same Cartesian Philoso- 

 phy, by Francis Bayle, M. D. at Toulouse. 



Both these tracts were lately Englished out of French : of the latter of which, 

 whilst it was yet untranslated, some account was given in Number 54 ; the 

 former shows only, that the system of M. Descartes seems to have been taken 

 out of the first chapter of Genesis ; and particularly, that his opinion concern- 

 ing brutes contains nothing dangerous. 



Continuation of Mr. Boyle's Experiment. N" 63, p. 2026. 



The Eleventh Title. 



Of the jicddents that happened to Animals in Air brought to a considerable degree, 

 but not near the utmost of Rarefoction. 



In the generality of our pneumatical experiments upon animals, it suited 

 with our purposes, to rarefy the air as much, and for the most part as fast as we 

 could ; but I had other trials in design, wherein an extraordinary degree of 

 rarefaction, but yet not nearly the highest to which the air might be brought 

 by our engine, seemed likeliest to conduce to my inquiries, and particularly 

 seemed hopeful to afford some light in reference to those diseases and distem- 

 pers that are thought primarily to affect the respiratory organs, or to depend 

 upon something amiss in respiration. 



Wherefore having gauges, by the help of which such experiments might be 



