VOL. XIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. b^^ 



Martini Lister h S. R. Lond. de Fontibus Medicatis Angliie Exercitatio nova et 

 prior. Eboraci. l682, in 6vo. N° 144, p. 59. 



The most rational way, in the opinion of this author, of ascertaining what 

 the saline contents of the several waters in England are, is to crystallize them. 



This crystallization is to be done with great care and accuracy, not at once 

 in a lump, as it seems most have been satisfied with, but after many experi- 

 ments, ablutions, dissolutions, and shootings, till you have the whole mass of 

 salt fairly and singly crystallized. 



Then to compare these crystals with the crystals of all the known fossile salts, 

 to which end these known salts also are to be exactly described from their 

 fairest crystals.* All which he has carefully done, described, and figured. 



Joh. jdlphonsi Borelli Neapol. Math. Projes. Opus Posthumum: Pars prima, 

 Rom(£ 168O; pars altera, ibidem, 168I. N° 144, p. 62. 



In this work the ingenious author first gives an exact description of a muscle, 

 which within its tendinous or nervous membrane contains several small bundles 

 of fibres, which constitute an hexagonal square, or triangular prism ; the fi- 

 bres themselves in each pr in being parallel, and variously connected to each 

 other; the microscopical appearance of a single fibre representing a cylinder, 

 not hollow like a reed, jut full of a spongy pith like elder. He gives an ac- 

 count of the several species of muscles, from the position of their fibres, and 

 asserts their proper action to be contraction ; adding a modest but solid censure 

 of Steno's structure of a muscle, and manner of its operation. He confutes 

 the common opinion, that nature with a very small force lifts up the greatest 

 weights, the contrary being demonstrated, that the power does 100 or lOOO 

 times exceed the weight of the limbs that are lifted up by it. 



He gives us likewise an account of the wonderful structure of the back-bone, 

 to the cartilages of which he attributes a greater force than to all the muscles 

 that contract it, as is evident from this proposition : that if a porter carry on 

 his back a weight of 120 %, the power nature exercises by the cartilages of the 

 vertebrae, and the musculi extensores of the back, is equal to the force of 

 25,585 tt), that of the muscles alone he computes to be 6404 %, and observes 



* The method here proposed of ascertaining the saline contents of mineral waters is by no means 

 satisfactory. The nature and proportions of the saline and other ingredients in such waters can only 

 be accurately determined by chemical analysis, conducted on the principles laid down, and the ex- 

 -amples given by Bergman, Kirwan, Westrunib, and others. 



VOL. II. 4 E 



