VOL. XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, SSS" 



Gated by the lungs. To conclude, since the vivifying particles in the air seem 

 to be very sparingly disseminated through it, I am apt to believe that the noxious 

 and pestilential are more sparingly scattered up and down ; the Author of human 

 nature having taken more care for its preservation than for its destruction ; and 

 therefore it may much better be inferred from the prefnises, that contagious disi 

 eases must be communicated to the blood by inspiration into the lungs, rathet* 

 than by any other way.* 



On the Pressure of Water at several Depths ; and of a fVell iHiit ebbs and flows. 

 By Dr. Wm. Oliver. N° 204, p. QOS. "''""" '''f[ ■''■"; 



In the Bay of Biscay, June the 8th, in a hundred fathoms of water, we 

 took a quart glass bottle, stopped with a large cork, and after tied down with 

 a strong packthread, fastening the bottle to the plumbing-rope, and with a lead 

 at the end, we sunk it to the bottom of the sea ; on drawing it up again, we 

 found the cork quite pressed through the neck of the bottle into its cavity, and 

 the bottle full of salt sea-water. We repeated the experiment with another 

 bottle and cork, in the same manner as before, but the cork proving not sound, 

 the sea- water soaked through it, and the bottle was half full of water ; so the 

 cork remained in the mouth of the bottle, not pressed down at all. We repeated 

 the experiment a third time in go fathoms of water, vvith a very sound cOrk, and 

 much larger than the mouth of the bottle, for we were forced to beat it in with 

 a hammer as far as it would go, leaving about an inch of the cork above the 

 mouth of the bottle, and tied down as before ; but it succeeded not so well as 

 at first, though the cork was now pressed down into the neck, and became level 

 with the mouth of the bottle. , 



Going a-shore one day, I walked about a mile into the country, to see a well 

 much talked of, near Torbay, called Lay- Well, which made me more than 

 amends for the pains I had taken to come at it. It is about 6 feet long, 3 feet 

 broad, and near 6 inches deep ; and it ebbs and flows often every hour, 

 very visibly ; for from high water to low water-mark, which I measured, I 

 found it somewhat more than 5 inches. I could not see any augmentation 

 above my mark when it flowed, nor fell it below my mark when, it ebbed, but 

 always kept the same distance. The flux and reflux, taken both together, was 

 performed in about two minutes ; nothing could be more regular, each suc- 

 ceeding the other as the tides of the sea do, I drank of it, and found it a 

 pleasant, delicate, fine, soft water, not brackish at all : which the country 

 peopleu.se in fevers as their ordinary diet-drink, which succeeds very well. 



* That the pattictes of contagion are, in numerous instances, drawn into the lungs along with the 

 air cannot be doubled ; but it would appear that, entering the mouth along with the air, ihey often 

 mix with the saliva, and being swallowed with it, are applied to the stomach also. 



VOL. III. 4 F 



