l6S PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [anNO 1674. 



^n Account of some Books. N" 108, p. 182. 



I. Die Africanische Landschaft Fetu beschrieben durch Wilhelm Johan 

 Muller von Harburgh ; Gedruckt zu Hamburgh, 1673, in 12mo. 



This piece composed and printed in High Dutch, contains divers not in- 

 considerable observations, made by an author that lived eight years in Fetu ; 

 a country situated about the middle of the gold-coast in Guinea, in 5-^ deg. 

 northern latitude. Observations, not of sufficient importance however to be 

 reprinted here. 



II. The first Book of the Art of Metals, written in Spanish by Alonso Barba, 

 &c. and Englished by the R. H. Edward Earl of Sandwich. London, 1674, 

 in 8vo. 



It is here observed — 1. That the provinces of the West Indies abound as 

 much in salt as in metals: that the sulphurous liquor naphtha and petroleum 

 will take fire at a great distance from the flame ; here confirmed by a sad in- 

 stance, in which it came to pass, that a labourer being let down into the bot- 

 tom of a well with a candle (in a lantern) to repair it, the petroleum immediately 

 through the holes of the lantern sucked, (as they speak) the flame to itself, 

 and set fire on the whole well ; which instantly discharged itself like a piece of 

 cannon, and blew the poor man into pieces, and took off an arm of a tree that 

 hung over the well. — ^That though Albertus M. and others think that marcasites 

 contain no metal in them ; yet experience has taught the contrary. — ^That where 

 orpiment is found, it is a certain sign of a mine of gold, whereof also it always 

 contains some little particle. — That there is a water in Peru, near Guancavelica, 

 of which all the cattle that drink it die; and which when put into moulds of 

 any size, and being for a few days exposed to the sun, it becomes a perfect 

 stone, with which they bnild their houses : and that in the mountain Pacocava, 

 a league from the mines of Verenguela de Pacagues, there are springs, that are 

 whitish, inclining to a yellow, of so petrifying a nature, that as the water runs 

 along, it concretes into hard and weighty stones of diflferent shapes. — ^That 

 abundance of brimstone in mines is a good sign of their richness : a consider- 

 able instance of which, is the rose coloured ore of the famous mountain of St. 

 Isabella of new Potosi, in the rich province of the Lipes, which is almost all 

 plate, and bred among such abundance of brimstone, that the cavities in the 

 rocks are presently all on fire, if a lighted candle touch them. — ^That the opi- 

 nion confining the number of metals to seven is very uncertain, since it is very 

 probable, that in the bowels of the earth there be more sorts than we yet know ; 

 and that in the mountains of Sudnos in Bohemia there was some years ago 



