308 - PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO \6§8: 



to Mr, Boyle, but has been laid aside since his death, till now. This Bononian 

 stone is found 3 miles from Bononia, in the mountain Paderno, or 8 miles west- 

 ward from thence, in that hill called Predalbino.* 



To make it shine, it is prepared by grating the stone smooth with a file, 

 dipping it in brandy ; after whicli it is rolled in some fine powder of the same 

 stone, and calcined in an open furnace, being placed in the middle of live 

 charcoal. When the stone is calcined the crust is taken off, and the surface 

 of the stone, which is become yellowish, when exposed to the daylight imbibes 

 the light, and shines like a coal in the dark. It will not be calcined into lime. 

 The stone shines in water, and receives the light in oil of nuts, but will not 

 emit it till it be out of it. 



At the end of this treatise is an account of plaister or gesso, of the several 



professors at that time in Italy, such as Montanari, Borelli, Malpighi, &c. After he had completed 

 his course (f xadeniical studies, of which the matheniaiical sciences formed a piincipal part, he tra- 

 vei'ed to Constantinople, where he made those observations on the Ottoman empire, and on the Bos- 

 phorus, which formed the subject of two separate publications. On his return from Turkey he 

 entered into the service of the erapeior Leopold I. to whom his knowledge of fortificationsproved 

 highly serviceable, at a time vvhen the Turks threatened an irruption into Hungary. In these cam- 

 paigns, however, he was unfortunately wounded and taken prisoner by the Tartars, under whom he 

 suffered extreme hardships, as well as under the Turks, to whom he was sold. Being at length re- 

 deemed, he entered a second time into the Imperial service, during the war between Austria and 

 France respecting the Spani'^h succession, and was promoted to the rank of a general ; but of this 

 rank he was shortly after deprived, in consequence of the surrender of the fortrebs of Brisac in 1 793, 

 where he was second in command. Concerning this transaction he published a justificatory memo- 

 vial, in which he makes it appear that the place was so badly garrisoned, and so ill provided with stores 

 and ammunition, as to have been incapable of holding out longer. After this, as it would appear, 

 unmerited disgrace, he devoted himself wholly lo science, and became the (bunder of a college at 

 Bologna, called the Institute of Sciences and Arts, 'lo this iiislilution he gave his numerous speci- 

 mens in natural history, his cabinet of mathematical and philosophical instruments, his maps and 

 plans of fortifications, his models of machines, his collection of antiquities, and last of all some 

 thousand volumes of books, whicli he had purchased at a gre.il expence during his travels in France, 

 Ena;land, and Holland. He moreover established a priming- house and letter-foundry for Latin, 

 Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. This establishment was unconnected with the Institute, and placed 

 in the hands of the Domi:.ican friars. He died in his native city, to the celebrity of v\hich as an 

 university he had so largely contributed, of a stroke of a^ioplexy, in 1730, aged 72. His two prin- 

 cipal works are 1, his Histoire Physique de la Mer, fol. 1715; and',', his D.mubius Fannonico-My- 

 sicus in 6 vols. fol. 1720, or the history, geographical and n.uural, of the river Danube, especially 

 in its course through Hungary. Of this costly, but in some parts not very accurate woik, the 1st vol. 

 treats of the course and navigation of the river, the force of its current, &c. &c. ; the 2d, of the anti- 

 quities found on its banks and neighbourhood; the 3d of thr Uanubian fossils and metals; tlielth, 

 of the fishes and Crustacea; the 5th, of the Danubian or Hungaiian birds ; and tlie blh and last, ot 

 the quadrupeds, insects, and vegetables, found upon or laar the banks ot this noble river. 



* To what class of minerals this stone belongs, has already been noticed at p. 382, vol. ii. of this 

 Abridgments 



