672 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS* [anNO l672. 



An Observation and Experiment concerning a Mineral Balsam, found 

 in a Mine of Italy by Signior Marc Antonio Castagna ; inserted in 

 the 7th Gtornale Veneto de Letterati of June %%, I67I, and thence 

 Englished as follows. N" 79, p- 3059- 



In the territory of Bergamo, Signior M. Ant. Castagna upon the confines of 

 his jurisdiction, smelling accidentally an uncommon sweet balsamic scent, and 

 following the same so as to find the spirits thereof to strike his nose more and 

 more strongly, he first caused that rocky hill, where he then was, to be digged 

 in the place that appeared to him most likely to be the seat of it, and found, 

 that the stones thereof harboured that fragrancy he smelt, which was so strong, 

 and by trials found so friendly to the uterus, that being applied they did in a 

 very short time cure it of any evil it is subject to. Encouraged hereby to pro- 

 secute this work, he made his workmen dig into the very bowels of the hill, 

 and so discovered holes in some stones, as if excavated by art, of a greenish 

 colour, in which he found, as distilled by nature and kept in vessels, that liquor 

 and balsam, which proved the source of that scent, which was limpid and of a 

 white colour, like the white of an egg, but somewhat oleaginous, floating upon 

 all sorts of liquors like oil. Besides, he met in the same cavities some small 

 grains concreted of the said liquor, resembling that which they call white am- 

 ber ; which, being chemically distilled, had the same odour with the balsam.* 



Two Observations, from the same Venetian Jommal, by P. Francesco 

 Lana, concerning some of the Effects of the Burning Concave of 

 Lyons; and also an odd Salt extracted out of a Metallic Substa7ice. 

 N" 79, p. 3060. 



The first is, that the said Francesco Lana having been informed, that the 

 famous burning concave, not long since made by M. de Vilette, did much sooner 

 melt iron than gold or silver; he esteems it worth considering, wliy a kitchen 

 fire does the contrary, melting gold sooner than iron. 



The other is, that the said P. Lana, having extracted out of a metallic sub- 

 stance a very white salt, the same was, upon the application of the gentlest 

 heatj resolved into a golden-coloured liquor ; which being removed from that 

 warmth, as soon as it felt the cool air, and even by opening the glass wherein 

 it was inclosed, did in a moment shoot afresh into the same salt ; and that 



* The bituminous fluid here described appears to have been that species of pellucid rock-oil termed 

 naphtha. 



