VOL. XV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 171 



overturn, if one wheel go on a superficies a foot and a half higher than that ot 

 the other, but this will admit of the difference of 3^ feet in height of the su- 

 perficies, without danger of overturning, 8ic. No particular description how- 

 ever is given of this vehicle. 



Account of a strange Sort of Bees in the fVest-lndies, communicated by M. J. 



N° 172, p. 1030. 



M. de Villermont informs me, that he has received from Cayenne in America, 

 a sort of honey comb, of a different make from the European, which is com- 

 posed of small bottles, or bladders of wax, of a brownish colour, inclining 

 to black ; being as large, and shaped liked the Spanish olives. They hang to- 

 gether in clusters, almost like a bunch of grapes, and are so contrived, that 

 each of them has an aperture during the time of work, but it is closed up, as 

 soon as the vessel of wax is filled with honeys after which the bees go to work 

 on another vessel. 



They ordinarily lodge in a hollow tree, or the cavity of a rock, by the sea 

 side; these being the fittest places to secure them from such animals as are 

 greedy of their honey, and therefore likely to molest them ; and they have the 

 more need of this caution, because they are more liable to be disturbed than 

 ordinary bees, as having no stings, and being incapable of hurting any thing. 

 When the combs are removed, they must be carried gently, and in the same 

 position they lay in. 



The honey itself is as clear and liquid as rock-water, and hardly to be dis- 

 tinguished from it by the sight. To take it out, you must pierce every bottle 

 with the thorn of a wild palm, or a pin, a little more than -^ from the bottom ; 

 for if you pierce it lower, there is a sediment, whose thickness hinders its run- 

 ning. This honey is one of the most agreeable liquors in the world. If a 

 large glass, or about half a pint be drunk fasting, it will give 2 or 3 stools, in 

 about 2 hours time, according to the temperament of the party; but if drank 

 at meals, it does not purge at all. A group of these honey-bottles is repre- 

 sented, fig. 3, pi. 5. 



Ambergris* is asserted to be but the wax, mixed with the honey, which falls 

 into the sea, and is beaten about in the waves, between the tropics. 



A New Hygroscope. By William Molyneux, Esq. Sec. of the Dublin Society. 



N° 172, p. 1032. 



In fig. 4, pi. 5, AB is a whipcord, about 4 feet long, tied fast to the end of 



• What ambergris is, bat been shown at p. 9^, vol, ii. of this Abridgmeni. 



z 2 



