VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 1^5 



a volatile salt and spirit, by the following process : Take in warm weather, a 

 considerable quantity of the leaves of any vegetable, stripped or pulled from the 

 greater stalks ; lay them on a heap, pressing them pretty close together, and 

 they will soon become very hot, especially in the middle ; and after a few days 

 resolve into a pappy substance, excepting the outward leaves; then being made 

 into pellets, and put into a glass-retort, and distilled, they will yield, besides a 

 great quantity of liquor, much thick black oil, of the consistence of a balsam. 

 The liquor being separated from the oil, and distilled in a tall glass body, a 

 volatile spirit sublimes, which, after one, two or three rectifications, becomes 

 perfectly urinous, and not to be distinguished, by smell or taste, from well- 

 rectified spirit of hartshorn, blood, urine, or sal ammoniac. 



On Stones of a perfect Gold Colour^ found in Animals. By Dr. Johnston of 

 Pontefract; and communicated by Mr. Lister. N® 101, p. 9. 



In the German Philosophic Ephemerides of the year 1672, I meet with these 

 words of Dr. Wedelius, Obs. 246, page 439, Possideo particulam Calculi vaccini, 

 instar Auri foliorum fulgidi ; the subject of that observation being an enumera- 

 tion and the description of several stones found in divers animals, as in dogs, 

 hogs, stags, and in cows also. I beg Dr. Johnston's pardon for having kept by 

 me two years an observation of this nature, which he was pleased to communi- 

 cate to me, and which yet was so surprising, that I had not the assurance to 

 offer it to you, being in this, as well as in all other matters, relating to the 

 phasnomena of natural history, very diffident. Being a little more confident 

 since I read the words of Dr. Wedelius, that the stones sent me by the learned 

 doctor were such indeed, and not some insect's eggs, as I once really persuaded 

 myself they were. 



In the year 1671, one Thomas Capldge, a butcher of Pomfret, killed an 

 ox for the shambles ; in which nothing was observed preternatural, till the 

 bladder being blown by his servant, there was something observed sticking to 

 the inside with a duskish froth. Keeping the bladder half blown, the butcher's 

 son, -who first discovered it, knocked with his hand on the side and the bottom 

 of the bladder, to make it settle to the neck, and by shaking and squeezing 

 it, got out the froth, and about 200 little globular stones, of several sizes, 

 the largest being about -^ of an inch diameter; others like pin-heads or 

 mustard-seed. They were of a duskish yellow colour, and smooth. Some 

 he broke, and the rest he kept in a paper; which, when dry, were like seed- 

 pearl, but more smooth, and of a perfect gold-colour, and so continued ever 

 after. Viewed in a microscope, they appeared very polished, and without any 

 rugosities : the figure in most was spherical ; in some a little compressed ; the 



