246 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN'o I67S. 



run out again at another sea-gulf within the Sinus Botlmicus, as this author 

 undertakes to prove. 



In Feroe there are no trees, but only some shrubs of juniper. Abundance 

 of turf compensates that defect. 



On the sand near the sea side is found in some places a kind of pellucid 

 stones, so hard that with them you may write on glass : they are white, or of a 

 bluish white ; others yellow : some of them may be so well polished, that they 

 serve for rings. — No grain will come to maturity there but barley. They 

 abound in pastures ; and in several places grass is so plentiful and juicy, that 

 oxen feed on it both winter and summer, growing sometimes so fat, that one 

 ox yields a 100 pounds of tallow: which rich pastures, our author observes, 

 always lie to the north-east and north ; as he notes also, that in Iceland the 

 north part is more fertile in grass and cattle than the south ; and that Green- 

 land likewise is found to be much more given to grass on the north-east side, 

 than on the west side. — The ground is manured with sea-weeds, laid on heaps 

 to rot ; by which they get good crops of barley. — Their plants are, turnips, 

 carrots, coleworts, lettuce, cresses, penny-royal, scurvy-grass, beccabunga, sor- 

 rel, angelica, tormentil and radix rhodia. — When extraordinary snow falls, and 

 shepherds are not present to drive their sheep under shelters, the sheep assem- 

 ble close together ; and the snow so covering them, that they cannot be seen 

 for a while ; at last the countryman perceives a damp arising from the snow by 

 reason of their warmth, and so goes and makes a passage for them to get out. 

 Sometimes, when they cannot be found by reason of excessive snow, they 

 will remain a whole month under the snow, eating the grass by the roots, 

 and the wool off one another. Their sheep, generally, are white in the north 

 part, but black in the south ; and being brought white from the north to the 

 south, they will change colour; yet so as to grow first spotted about their 

 legs, then on their thighs, then under their bellies, and at last all over. 



III. The Gentleman's Recreation in four Parts ; viz. Hunting, Hawking, 

 Fowling, Fishing. Collected from Ancient and Modern Authors, Foreign and 

 Domestic, and rectified by the Experience of the most skilful Artists of these 

 times. Lond. in octavo, ]674. 



Experiments about the weakened Spring, and some unobserved Effects of the Air, 

 By the Hon. Robert Boyle. N° 120, p. 467. 



Exper. I. Having put filings of crude copper into a crystalline glass of a 

 conical shape, into which was poured some strong spirit of salt, to the height 

 of about a finger's breadth above the filings ; and then closing the vessel with a 

 glass -stopper well fitted to it, we suffered it to continue unmoved in a window 

 for some days, till the liquor had both obtained a high and darkish brown colour 



