394 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO I676. 



bri), they should understand nothing of each other's language at the Saxons 

 entrance : for the continuance of time, and the mixture of the Britons with the 

 Phoenicians, Grecians, Gauls and Romans, in several ages, might be the cause 

 of that difference ; though it is not to be doubted but that there are many words 

 in the British tongue which agree with the Saxon, and which probably they had 

 in use long before the arrival of the Saxons themselves. 



Of Shining Flesh. By Dr. J. Beal. N° 125, p. SQQ. 



At Yeoval, in Somersetshire, a neck of veal, which seemed to be well co- 

 loured, and in good condition in every respect, being killed in the evening of 

 the day before, was hung to a shelf in a little chamber. The following day in 

 the evening, the veal shone so bright that the woman of the house was affright- 

 ed. She calls up her husband; who hastens to the light, as fearing fire, and 

 seeing the light come only from the flesh, he caught it in his left hand, and 

 struck it with his right hand, as endeavouring to extinguish the flame, but 

 without effect; as the flesh shone as much as before, if not more, and his hand 

 with which he struck the flesh appeared all in a flame, as bright and vivid as the 

 flesh of the veal was, and so it continued, whilst he went from place to place, 

 showing it to others. And though he thrust his blazing hand into a pail of 

 water, the flame was not extinguished ; but his hand shone through the water: 

 at last he took a napkin and wiped his hand, till he wiped off all the light. The 

 next day the veal was dressed, and it eat very well. 



Another time boiling the chitterlings and feet of a porker, and when cold, 

 putting them into souse liquor or pickle, in a low room to the north, which 

 had little light at mid-day, and was very dark, as soon as night set in : in four 

 days all those parts of the guts, and the claws of the feet, which floated on the 

 top of the pickle, began to shine, but the parts immersed under water gave no 

 light ; the light increased daily more and more in all the parts that floated. In 

 three days more, the light seemed as bright as the clearest moon-shine ; and 

 thus it continued to shine, but fainter and fainter, and in fewer parts, almost a 

 week longer ; for, being often tumbled about, by degrees the whole sunk into 

 the pickle, and then all the light ceased. Whilst the light was vivid, by rubbing 

 the hands on the shining part, a strong light was communicated to them. Sus- 

 pecting this luminousness might be owing to the pickle, the pork was wiped 

 dry with a napkin, yet the flame was rather increased than diminished. No 

 perceptible warmth was found in these parts. I noted that by this acquired 

 blaze, the face and hands appeared a great deal larger than they really were. — 

 The pickle in which the pork was put, was made only of pure water, bran, and 

 bay-salt, and so far from shining, that it quenched the light by degrees of some 



