VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 301 



the skull ; of the modern use and abuse of trepanning, which is here showed 

 not to be so often necessary nor useful as is commonly pretended ; of grievous 

 wounds in the head well cured without the trepan ; of the manner of cutting 

 hare-lips, and several successful operations thereof; of the happy cure of a 

 wounded nerve, &c. 



V. New and Curious Observations of the Art of Curing the Venereal Disease, 

 &c. Written in French by M. de Blegny, Surgeon to the French Queen; 

 translated by Walter Harrys, M. D. late Fellow of New College in Oxford. 

 Lond. 1676, in 8vo. 



^n Account of Virginia, its Situation, Temperature, Productions, Inhabitants, 

 and their manner of planting and ordering Tobacco, ^c. Communicated by 

 Mr, Thomas Glover, an ingenious Surgeon that lias lived some Years in that 

 Country. N° 126, p. 623. 



There is little in this paper worth preserving, except the account of a cer- 

 tain marine animal, which is as follows : As I was coming down the Rapahan- 

 nock. river in a sloop bound for the bay, it happened to prove calm; at which 

 time we were three leagues short ot the river's mouth; the tide of ebb 

 being then done, the sloop man dropped his graplin, and he and his boy took 

 a little boat belonging to the sloop, in which they went ashore for water, leaving 

 me aboard alone, in which time I took a small book out of my pocket and sat 

 down at the stern of the vessel to read. But I had not read long before I heard 

 a great rushing and flashing of the water, which caused me suddenly to look 

 up, and about half a stone's cast from me appeared a most prodigious creature,* 

 much resembling a man, only somewhat larger, standing right up in the water, 

 with his head, neck, shoulders, breast, and waste, to the cubits of his arms, 

 above water ; his skin was tawny, much like that of an Indian ; the figure of his 

 head was pyramidal, and smooth, without hair ; his eyes large and black, as 

 were also his eye-brows ; his mouth very wide, with a broad black streak on the 

 upper lip, which turned upwards at each end like mustachios ; his countenance 

 was grim and terrible; his neck, shoulders, arms, breast, and waste, were like 

 those of a man; his hands, if he had any, were underwater; he seemed to 

 stand with his eyes fixed on me for some time, and afterwards dived down; but 

 a little after rose at somewhat a farther distance, and turned his head towards 

 me again, and then immediately fell a little under water, and swam away so near 

 the top of the water, that I could discern him throw out his arms and gather 



• In all probability some species either of phoca or trichechus. 



