VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 401 



of it had most of them fallen on their faces, and hid themselves as well as they 

 could in the loose sleek or small coal, and under the shelter of posts; yet never- 

 theless the damp returning out of the hollows, and drawing towards the eye of 

 the pit, it came up with incredible force, the wind and fire tore most of their 

 clothes off their backs, and singed what was left, burning their hair, faces and 

 hands, the blast falling so sharp on their skin, as if they had been whipped with 

 rods; some that had least shelter were carried 15 or l6 yards from their first 

 station, and beaten against the roof of the coal and sides of the posts, and lay 

 afterwards a good while senseless, so that it was long before they could hear or 

 find each other. As it drew up to the day-pit, it caught one of the men along 

 with it that was next the eye, and ascended with such a terrible crack, not un- 

 like but more shrill than a cannon, so that it was heard 15 miles off along with 

 the wind, and such a pillar of smoke as darkened all the sky for a great while. 

 The brow of the hill above the pit was 18 yards high, and on it grew trees 14 

 or 15 yards long, yet the man's body and other things from the pit were seen 

 above the tops of the highest trees, at least a 100 yards. On this pit stood a 

 horse-engine, of substantial timber and strong iron-work, on which lay a trunk 

 or barrel for winding the rope up and down, of above 1000 pounds weight; it 

 was then in motion, one bucket going down, and the other coming up full of 

 water. This trunk was fastened to the frame with locks and bolts of iron; yet 

 it was thrown up, and carried a good way from the pit; and pieces of it, 

 though bound with iron-hoops and strong nails, blown into the neighbouring 

 woods; as were also the two buckets, and the ends of the rope, after the buckets 

 were blown from them, stood a while upright in the air like pikes, and then 

 came leisurely down. The whole frame of the engine was moved out of its 

 place ; and the clothes, caps and hats of those men that escaped, were after- 

 wards found shattered to pieces, and thrown into the woods a great way from 

 the pit. This happened the beginning of February 1675, being a season when 

 other damps are scarcely felt or heard of. 



Mr. Leeivenhoeck* s Letter from Delf, the ]4th of May 1677, concerning his 

 Observations on the Carneous Fibres of a Muscle, and the Cortical and Medullary 

 Part of the Brain-, also on Moxa and Cotton. N° 136, p. 899. 



I took the flesh of a cow; which I cut asunder with a sharp knife, and using 

 a microscope I severed before my eyes the membrane from it ; by which I 

 plainly saw that fine membrane or film, in which these carneous fibres lie inter- 

 woven, and of which I speak in my former letter; where I say that those mem- 



VOL. u. 3 F 



