398 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO ISqS. 



has been no earthquake that could cause it, neither was there any such thing in 

 other rivers. 



Concerning Irish Slate. Extracted from the Minutes of the Philosophical Society 

 at Oxford, March 18, l683-4. N" 243, p. 271. 



It having been hinted that the Irish slate pulverized, and infused in water for 

 a night or less, would impart its vitriolic quality so far to it, that it would strike 

 of a faint reddish colour with powder of galls, as the vitriolic waters of Tun- 

 bridge, Astrop, and dives others do ; it not only led me to believe that some of 

 these waters might as well issue from slate as an iron ore; unless it should ap- 

 pear, that this sort of slate were an iron ore too ; which induced me to calcine 

 it for 3 or 4 hours after the manner of Dr. Lister, to try whether it would then, 

 like the other iron ore, apply to the magnet ; but although the magnet did not 

 take the least notice of it, yet it afforded me another discovery altogether satis- 

 factory, viz. That upon torrefaction it became a yellow ochre, and would mark 

 like it ; which further persuades me, that the yellow, or rather orange-coloured 

 sediment found at the bottom of these fountains, proceeds rather from this sort 

 of slate than from an iron ore; fori much question whether some of the yel- 

 low ochres, though the red ones plainly do, proceed from, or are iron ores. 



Some Observations iri the East Indies, in ansiver to some Queries. N° 243, p. 273. 



It does not appear that the Maldiva islands were ever joined to the main 

 land, there being no soundings between the islands and the main, and the 

 ea.th, sand, and shells of the one much differing from the other: the small 

 shells, called cowries, which pass for money in Bengal and other places, are 

 chiefly found there. The north and south poles are not visible under the line, 

 for in the clearest night the horizon is so overcast with a thick darkness, that 

 no star can be seen. The poles are seldom visible till they have 5 or 6 degrees 

 latitude, though the night be ever so clear. Gum lac is the house of a large 

 kind of ants, which they make on the boughs of trees, to keep them from the 

 weather. It is certain that cloves will attract water at some distance, which is 

 daily experienced among the Dutch in this country, who make a considerable 

 advantage of it. I have known a bag of cloves laid over water 1 or 2 feet distant, 

 a considerable quantity of which has been imbibed during a night ; and the 

 cloves have become so moist that the water might be pressed from them. There 

 h 'S been seen an oyster-shell in Bantam, that has been about 18 inches dia- 

 meter, and several in Maccao that have been 18 inches long, and 5 or 6 broad, 

 and the fish within proportionable to the shell. At Batavia a whole duck was 



