\TA PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1685. 



limes breeamg among us, are all evident proofs thereof. M. Cattier, in his 

 Traite de la Macreuse, affirms that the French macreuse is the greater coot of 

 Bellonius; and Mr. Willughby, Ornitholog. p. 320, seems to be of the same 

 opinon. Some learned men take it for the puffin of the Scillies and Isle of 

 Man; others for a sort of colymbus or mergus, ducker or diver. But the 

 French macreuse is of the duck kind, and is the scoter, or anas nigra minor 

 described by Mr. Ray in Mr. Willughby's Ornitholog. p. 336. 



The macreuse is frequently taken in nets placed under water, on the coasts of 

 Normandy, Languedoc, and Provence ; and I have seen it "on the Laguna of 

 Venice, at the mouths of the Breuta, Addesis, and the Po. A duck very like 

 unto this, if not the same, I saw on the Mare Mortuum, and the lake Avernus, 

 as also many other wateryfowl feeding upon and flying over that water, though 

 said by many to kill birds at a distance ; I observed also several land fowl to fly 

 over that lake without the least disturbance. But perhaps the poisonous steams, 

 if there be any peculiar to that lake, sometimes vanish and return again, or else 

 may be altered by new effluvia intermingled with them. 



When I delivered my thoughts concerning boiling fountains, their varieties 

 and causes, I had not then time enough to mention the burning ones, except 

 only that near Wigan in Lancashire, with which those burning fountains, near 

 Grenoble in Dauphine, near Cibinium or Hermanstadt in Transylvania, near 

 Chermay, a village in Switzerland, in the Canton of Friburgh, and that not 

 far from Cracovia in Poland, do agree in many particulars ; as, in being actually 

 cold, yet inflammable and taking fire at a distance, on the application of any 

 lighted body ; which the boiling springs near Peroul will not do ; this ought to 

 be understood of them in their sources, because when removed from thence, 

 neither the waters, nor their earths will produce any such phasnomena, as 

 boiling or flaming. 



It is related of the burning fountain in the palatinate of Cracow, that on eva- 

 porating the water, a dark or pitch-like substance may be extracted, which 

 cures the most inveterate ulcers in a very short time ; and that the mud itself is 

 very powerful against rheumatic and gouty pains, palsies, scabs, &c. The in- 

 habitants of an adjacent village, drinking much of this spring, do generally live 

 to 100 or 150 years, which is attributed to the sanative virtue of the water. 



On tJie French Macreme. In a Letter from Mr. Ray, F. R. S. to Dr. Robinson. 



N" 172, p. 1041. 



I had no sooner seen the cases of the male and female macreuse, which 

 you sent me, but instantly I found that the macreuse was no stranger to me. 



