TOL. XIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 79 



low ; it fell always in the night, and chiefly in moorish low grounds, on the 

 top of the grass, and often on the thatch of cahins. It was seldom observed 

 in the same places twice : it commonly lay on the earth for near a fortnight, 

 without changing its colour ; but then dried and turned black. Cattle fed in 

 the fields where it lay indifferently, as in other fields. It fell in lumps, often 

 as large as the end of one's finger, very thin and scatteringly ; it had a strong 

 ill scent, somewhat like the smell of church-yards or graves : and indeed we 

 had during most of that season very stinking fogs, some sediment of which 

 might possibly occasion this stinking dew, though I will by no means pretend 

 to offer that as a reason of it: I cannot find that it was kept long, or that it 

 bred any worms or insects ; yet the superstitious country people, who had scald 

 or sore heads, rubbed them with this substance, and said, it healed them. 



Abstract of a Letter from Sir JVilliam Beeston, Governor of Jamaica, to Mr. 

 Charles Bernard, containing some Observations about the Barometer, and of a 

 Hot Bath in that Island. Dated ylpril 8, J 696. N° 220, p. 225. 



I diligently observed my barometer every day, and found that in the morn- 

 ings before the sun arose, it would stand at changeable ; and as the heat in- 

 creased with the day, it sunk to within one degree above rain ; there it con- 

 tinued several days, and never altered above 3 degrees, though sometimes fair, 

 sometimes rain, and sometimes cloudy ; and one morning leaving open my 

 window, and the sun having south declination, it shone in on the visible part 

 of the tube, and in half an hour it sunk 3 degrees; which I never observed it 

 to do with heat in England. I presently shut the window, and in one hour 

 it rose again to within one degree of changeable. After it had kept this course 

 in several weathers, for t) weeks together, I began to doubt if it were well ad- 

 justed, and therefore took it down, new filled the tube, turned it three or four 

 times up and down, to let out the air, and put it up with great care ; and ever 

 since it continues the same, never by one degree to changeable, nor down by one 

 degree to rain; so that the whole progress of the mercury is but -^ o( an inch. 



Here is a very hot spring of mineral water ; but being an uncouth way for 

 about 6 miles, from any usual roads, and among hills, woods, and rocks, it 

 has not been frequented, but accidentally by hunters. Ever since I came 

 hither, I have been urging people to try it; but the distance and trouble lias 

 hindered them, till this last month ; when two, the one very much afflicted 

 with the belly-ach, and another with the pox, as is supposed, went to it, carried 

 clothes, built a hut, to keep them from the rain and sun; and both presently, 

 by drinking and bathing, found such ease, that in about 10 days they returned 

 perfectly cured. It comes out of a rock, in a fresh current, near a fine rivulet 

 of good cool water ; but is so hot, they alflrm it soon boils eggs ; some say 



