VOL. VII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 721 



over night, the next mornuig there would be found others, at such a time only 

 when it was a serene and dewy sky ; and that on the herbs of the meadow, and 

 without the bounds of those bare and sterile places, never any crystals were to 

 be found ; besides, that the ground having been in some places bared of all 

 greens, and reduced to the condition of those other naked places, yet no crystals 

 were ever seen to have been formed there. But when I had examined tliat in 

 the neighbourhood of that hill there was no mark at all of any mines, I con- 

 cluded that it might be a plenty of nitrous steams which might hinder 

 vegetation in those places, and coagulate the dew falling thereon. And that 

 those exhalations were rather nitrous than of another kind, I was induced to 

 believe, because nitre is not only the natural coagulum of water, as is manifest 

 inartificial glaciations; but also it ever retains the above hexangular figure, 

 altogether like that of those crystals. Which may also be the very cause of the 

 hexangular figure in snow; this being nothing else but water concreted bv its 

 natural coagulum, which is a nitrous exhalation. And to make it yet more 

 manifest, that these are indeed expirations of nitre, I dug up some of the earth, 

 and drew a salt from it, which had both the taste and figure of nitre, though 

 some grains of it were of a square, others of a pyramidal figure. 



Account of an Inland Sea for Laliej near Danfzick, yielding at a cer- 

 tain season of the year a green substance, ivhich causes certai?i death ; 

 tvith an Observation on JFhite Amber; communicated by Mr. Kirkby% 

 in a Letter to the Editor, from Dantzick, Dec. 19, I67I. N" 83, 

 p. 4069. 



Near a small village called Tuckum, two German miles and a half distant from 

 this city westward, there is an inland sea (made by the meeting of three rivulets, 

 some springs from the adjoining hillocks, and the descending rain and snow 

 water,) of about half a German mile long, and an eighth part of such a mile 

 broad. It stretches N. N. W. and S. S. W. About the middle of the bow on 

 the east side it discharges itself with a pretty stream, as it also does in another 

 place more southerly. The soil of the groundround about seems to be sand mixed 

 with clay. Its shore generally sandy, as is its bottom also. Its depth, where 

 deepest, 4 fathoms, but generally but 1 or 1 4-. It is stored with wholesome and 

 delicate fish, as perch, roach, eels, &c. and famed for a small fish, much esteemed 

 here, and not much unlike a perch, only not so party-coloured, and having a 

 larger head in proportion to its body, called the cole-perch. The water sweet 

 and wholesome; but only in the three summer months, June, July, and August, 

 it becomes every year, during the dry weather, green in the middle, with a hairy 



VOL. I. 4 Y 



