518 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 68 1-2, 



Exposing a large piece of it that was carefully weighed, it continued a great 

 while shining before the light was quite extinguished. And examining the 

 quantity of the liquor it resolved into, I was not a little surprized to find it 

 thrice its first weight at least. Some that tasted of it called it spirit of sulphur, 

 others spirit of salt.* 



It being now generally agreed, that the fire and flame have their pabulum 

 out of the air, I was willing to try this matter in vacuo. To effect this, I 

 placed a considerable lump of this matter under a glass, which I fixed to an 

 engine for exhausting the air; then presently working the engine, I found it 

 grow lighter, though a charcoal that was well kindled would be quite extinguish- 

 ed at the first exhaustion ; and upon the third or fourth draught, which very 

 well exhausted the glass, it much increased its light, and continued so to shine 

 with its increased light for a long time; on re-admitting the air, it returns again 

 to its former dulness. Endeavouring to blow it up to a flame with a pair of 

 bellows, it seemed to be quite extinguished; as it was a good while before any 

 light appeared. — All liquors are apt to extinguish this light, when the matter is 

 plunged into them; nor will it shine or burn though you boil it in the most in- 

 flammable liquors, even oil of olives, spirit of turpentine, or spirit of wine. 



On Roman Urns, and other Antiquities, near York, By Dr. Lister of*Yorh. 



Philos. Collect. N°4, p. 87. 



Roman urns are found in many places throughout the kingdom; but the 

 different workmanship of these vessels, their composition, and places where 

 they were made, have been, T think, but little noticed. Here then are found at 

 York, in the road or Roman-street without Midselgate, and likewise by the 

 river side, where the brick kilns now are, urns of three different tempers, viz. 

 1. Of a bluish grey colour, having a great quantity of coarse sand wrought in 

 with the clay. 1. Others of the same colour, having either a very fine sand 

 mixed with it full of mica, or catsilver, or made of clay naturally sandy. 

 3. Red urns of fine clay, with little or no sand in it. These pots are quite 

 throughout of a red colour like fine bole. Also many of those red pots are 

 elegantly adorned with figures in basso relevo, and usually the workman's name, 

 which I think others have mistaken for that of the persons buried there, on the 

 bottom or cover; as Januarius and such like; and that very name I have seen 

 on several red pots, found both here and at Aldborough. These are glazed in- 

 side and outside with a kind of varnish of a bright coral colour. 



The composition of the first sort of pots, first gave me occasion to discover 

 the places where they were made : the one about the midway between Wilber- 



* Phosphorous acid of the new nomenclature. 



