VOL. XX.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 29/ 



Inquiring about his diet, I was told by his parents, that for some years when 

 they lived near the shore of the Firth of Forth, the boy frequently got a num- 

 ber of sand eels, (ammodites,) whicli he often boiled without taking pains to 

 free them of the sand that stuck to them. This, with the glutinous juice of 

 that fish, has furnished abundant matter for these stones. He continues pass- 

 ing daily several of them with great quantities of sand, notwithstanding the 

 usual remedies are continued. This is a specimen of the art of nature and her 

 mechanism, in giving such various shapes to these stones, by directing the mat- 

 ter so regularly to such forms. I shall give you some cases, which show her 

 power in dissolving stones, when coated, and of a more united texture. 



The first occurred in a reverend divine, now above the 70th year of his age. 

 After having for 10 years suffered much from a confirmed stone in the bladder; 

 since the beginning of this last winter he has passed, but with pain, a vast 

 number of slices, of several figures, many of them cornered and pointed, about 

 the thickness of a shilling, white within and smooth, but without of a dark 

 colour ; suppression of urine for several hours sometimes precedes them ; he uses 

 the ordinary remedies ; in the intervals he has tolerable good health. I was told 

 by an expert physician of 2 patients of his, the one yet living, who after pass- 

 ing an incredible number of these slices, is now in perfect health, and free from 

 that disease. The other, who died long ago, after passing for a long time such 

 slices, became free of the disease, and when his body was opened at his death, 

 no stene nor slices were found in his bladder. So, even in this obstinate dis- 

 ease nature is sometimes the doctor. 



Concerning an extraordinary Inundation in the Island of Mauritius. Covimuni- 

 catedbyMr. Witsen, Bur go-Master of Amsterdam, F. R. S. N° 242, p. 268. 



On the 22d March, 1696, at half an hour after 12 o'clock, being calm but a 

 little rainy, the river which passes by the plain ground of Noardwyck, in the 

 space of a quarter of an hour, swelled to such a height, that the sugar-mill, 

 the sugar-work, and almost all the said ground was ruined, the most part of the 

 sugar-canes being rooted or torn out of the ground by the violence of the tor- 

 rent. It cannot be imagined what had caused so sudden a swelling of this river, 

 for the rain was not very hard, and could not have produced that effect ; for 

 about 12 o'clock, when the company's servants assembled for dinner, the water 

 of the river was at its ordinary height, and before they had half dined all the 

 country was floodetl a foot higher than 2 years since, when there was a hurri- 

 cane and a most violent storm. It is very remarkable, that at 1 o'clock all the 

 extraordinary water was gone, and the river again at its ordinary height. There 



VOL. IV. Q a 



