722 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I672. 



efflorescence, which green substance, being by some violent wind forced ashore, 

 and with the water drunk by any cattle, dog, or poultry, causes certain and sud- 

 den death ; whereas at the same time, that a knowing and ingenuous person 

 saw three dogs killed with it, the horses that were rode into the water beyond 

 the place where this green substance floated, drunk without any hurt, and 

 that also during the same season, the water in the streams that flow from it 

 are wholesome. 



One thing more I must add, that the chief fisher here informed me, that two 

 or three years ago fishing in this sea, his net brought up a considerable large 

 piece of white amber, which as a rarity he presented to one of the chief Fathers 

 of the Olive's abbey, to which this sea belongs. Now since this sea is not to 

 be suspected to come from the ocean, it lying so high, and about three German 

 miles distant from the ocean; and since also the neighbouring woods, that bear 

 only very resinous trees, cannot be reasonably said to furnish such amber, that 

 conjecture which imports,* that amber is a bituminous fluid substance, hardened 

 by the operations of the aqu-aerial particles upon it, may receive some confir- 

 mation from this account. 



An Account of some Boohs. iV^SS, p. 4071. 



I. De Anima Brutorum Exercitationes duae, &c. Auth. Thoma Willis, 

 M. D. Philos. Natur. Prof. Sidlei. Oxon. nee non Med. Coll. Lond. et Soc. 

 Reg. Socii. Oxon. An. 1672, in 4to. 



We shall not detain our readers with an account of the speculative opinions, 

 (however ingenious) and obsolete pathological doctrine delivered in this book. 



II. Suite des nouvelles Experiences sur la Vipere, avec une Dissertation sur 

 son Venin; per Moyse Charas. A Paris, 1671, in 8vo. 



This author obstinately maintains what he so erroneously asserted in his former 

 observations on this subject. (See pp. 411-412 of this vol.) " That the venom 

 of vipers is only in their enraged spirits, and not in the yellow liquor contained 

 in the vesicles attached to their gums:" as stated and proved by Redi. See 

 pp. 58 and 654 of this vol. 



III. The Chirurgical and Anatomical Works of Paul Barbette, M. D. Prac- 

 titioner at Amsterdam ; together with a Treatise of the Plague. Translated 

 from Low Dutch. London 1672, in Bvo. 



An analysis of this Treatise would afford little satisfaction to our medical and 

 chirurgical readers, who well know that both medicine and surgery, (but par- 

 ticularly the last) have received great improvements since the time when Barbette 

 wrote. 



IV. The American Physician ; or a Treatise of Roots, Plants, Trees, Shrubs, 

 Fruit, Herbs, &c. growing in the English Plantations in America: whereuntp 



