VOL. XXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 635 



traded (cifler I had separated and dilated the mortification about it) above half 

 the ribs, some vertebrae of the back, and other bones, and cut out above a 

 pound of the child's mortified substance, as black, as ink, with an extreme 

 nauseous smell. And every 2d or 3d day for a month, I extracted what I could, 

 being obliged to do it very slowly on account of the exceeding weakness of the 

 patient who certainly would have died in the operation, had I forcibly extracted 

 it, and not given her time ; for we were obliged every moment to support her 

 with cordials, and after every operation she found herself lightsomer, and by 

 degrees sweeter, which for the first time gave me hopes of her recovery. For 

 not only the linea alba and muscles of the abdomen, but the peritonaeum and 

 omentum were mortified to a great breadth, and the intestines lay fairly in view, 

 and exposed to the air a long time. After extracting a part, and having a plen- 

 tiful discharge of thin foetid matter, the other discharge downwards began to 

 lessen and abate, so that I endeavoured to assist it by bandages and compresses, 

 with deterging and drying injections up the vagina; by which means in a little 

 time there was no discharge that way, and those parts soon became perfectly 

 well ; and in some time after the ulcer separated (with the assistance of fomen- 

 tations, good digestives, and mundificatives,) from its putrefaction, contracted 

 and united, and has now been quite cicatrised near 3 months, all the abdomen 

 being soft, easy, and well conditioned. The woman laboured all this season at 

 hay and corn harvest. 



I presume by the forcible extraction of the secundines, the uterus had been 

 lacerated, and so ulcerated; and the woman being extremely weak, and con- 

 stantly lying in bed, gave the more liberty for its working upwards. 



Account of the Lapis Amianthus, Asbestos, or Linum incomhustibile, lately found 

 in Scotland. By Mr. Wilson. N° 276, p. 1004. 



Having heard that in the grounds of Francis Gordon of Achindore, Aberdeen- 

 shire, there were found some pieces of petrified wood ; I had the curiosity to 

 go to see them. On the side of a hill, of a heath kind of ground, somewhat 

 inclining to what we call moss, in a very small brook, and hard by it, in the 

 space of 10 or 12 yards, I found a great many of those stones, some a foot in 

 length, which appeared like wood : but because I could not perceive any vestige 

 of wood thereabouts, nor could find any of the stones, except in that very spot 

 of ground, I could not think they were petrified wood. But on cutting up 

 the ground about the place with my knife, where I found likewise some pieces 

 of the stone, and very near the surface several pieces of a fibrous matter, which 

 my knife could not cut ; this I immediately judged to be an incombustible sub- 

 stance, as it proved afterwards, when I tried it by the fire. 



4 m2 



