VOL. IX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 12/ 



Star in the dragon's head, and consequently a confirmation of the Copemican 

 system against the Ptolemaic and Tychonic. At the end of the explication he 

 mentions some things, which he looks upon as very remarkable, occurring in 

 those observations ; one of which' was, that in the day time, the sun shining 

 very clear, he observed the bright star in the dragon's head to pass by the zenith 

 as distinctly and clearly as if the sun had been set ; \vhich he esteems to have 

 been the first time that the stars were seen when the sun shone very bright; that 

 tradition, of seeing the stars in the day with the naked eye out of a deep well or 

 mine, being by him judged a mere fiction, a thing he had deemed impossible. 



Lastly, he promises that he will explain to the curious a system of the world, 

 diflJ'ering in many particulars from any yet known, but answering in all things to 

 the common rules of mechanical motions ; which system he here declares to 

 depend on three suppositions : ] . That all celestial bodies whatsoever have an 

 attraction or gravitating power towards their own centres, whereby they attract, 

 not only their own parts, and keep them from flying from them, as we may 

 observe the earth to do ; but also all other celestial bodies that are within the 

 sphere of their activity. 2. That all bodies whatsoever, that are put into a 

 direct and simple motion, will so continue to move forward in a straight line, 

 till they are by some other more effectual power deflected and bent into a motion 

 that describes some curve line. 3. That these attractive powers are so much 

 the more powerful in operating, by how much the nearer the body, acted on^ 

 is to their own centres. 



II. Medicina Militaris, or Body of Military Medicines experimented, by 

 Raymundus Mindererus, late chief Physician of the Electoral Court of Bavaria, 

 8cc. Englished out of High Dutch. London, 8vo. 1(574. 



In the present improved state of pharmacy, it would be little satisfactory to 

 our readers to detail the contents of this obsolete military pharmacopoeia. The 

 author, however, was a very celebrated physician in his days. He was born at 

 Augsburg, where he practised, and died in 162 1 . Besides this and other works, 

 .he wrote a treatise de Pestilentia. That useful diaphoretic medicine, which is 

 formed by the saturation of the vol. alkali with vinegar, has continued, till 

 within these few years, to be named after him. In the Pharmacopoeia of the 

 Lond. Coll. it is now called aqua ammonias acetatae. 



III. Ephemeridum Medico-Physicarum Germanias Annus Tertius, &c. 

 Lips, et Franc. ] 673, in 4to. 



For the reason mentioned at the conclusion of the 1 st volume of this abridge- 

 ment, we omit an enumeration of the contents of this miscellaneous work. 



IV. England's Interest and Improvement, consisting in the Increase of the 

 Store and Trade of this Kingdom, by Samuel Fortrey, Esq. Which Tract was 



