266 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1705. 



was there more than 6 ounces of a whitish liquor in it. The lungs were so 

 distended with wind as to fill up the whole cavity of the thorax ; we pricked 

 and cut into them, hut not a drop of water came from them. Hence we have 

 all the reason in the world to believe that this person was stifled alive under 

 water, and may see how fallacious that standing rule of the ancients is, which 

 allowed no person to be drowned without considerable quantities of water in 

 the lungs, stomach, and intestines.* 



After these experiments, the author proceeds to answer the objection that 

 was made, of persons recovering by being set upon their heads ; and afterwards 

 to show why it happens, that in drowned persons the water is seldom found 

 either in the lungs or stomach. 



Several Microscopical Observations on the Pumice-stone, Coral, Sponges, &c. 

 By Mr. Anthony Fan Leuwenhoeck. F. R. S. N** 304, p. 2158. 

 I have oft^n heard it said, that the pumice-stone is found driving in the sea, 

 and that the occasion of its lightness is, that it is calcined by the fire before it 

 is thrown out of the burning mountains, after such a manner as to fit it for 

 swimming on the top of the water. I have often observed this stone, but could 

 never conceive that the cavities which are found between its parts, excepting 

 those exceedingly small tubes or pipes, some of which appear to be hollow, 

 could be occasioned by fire. For if it were true that such stones were thrown 

 out of the volcanos very high into the air, they would probably be red-hot, and 

 in that state falling, from whence it would follow, that they must necessarily 

 sink ; for it is certain that the heat cannot come into the cavities of the small 

 pipes without driving the air out of them ; now there being no common air in 

 those pipes while the stones are glowing hot, and the stones falling immediately 

 into the sea, the heat is expelled by the water, which insinuates itself presently 

 into those cavities, and consequently the pumice-stone, having its tubes filled 

 with it, will sink down to the bottom, and not rise to the surface of the water. 

 That this is so we may be satisfied, if we take a piece of charcoal that has been 

 prepared as usual, and throw it into the water, we shall see how high it will 

 rise, by reason of its lightness, above the surface. Then this piece of coal 

 being thrown into the fire till it becomes red-hot, all its tubes or pipes, instead 

 of air, are filled with a subtile matter, which I shall call fire ; now if you throw 

 it immediately into water, the fire will be expelled from the pipes, and since 



* See note at p. 323, vol. ii. of this Abridgment. In cases of submersion a small quantity of water 

 does generally get into the trachea and bronchia } but not enough to destroy life, the extinction of 

 which is, in such cases, to be ascribed to other causes, as shown by Mr. Qoodwnroin his treatise on 

 this subject. 



