458 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNOI/OS. 



differently well from the month of April, to the heginning of June, the spots, 

 hardness, and other accidents of the scurvy then disappearing; but on the 

 coming of the great heats, all those symptoms returned. Those who were so 

 well, as to be ready to quit the hospital, relapsed again : their legs and thighs 

 became all black, and many of them died. This disorder might arise from a 

 too great quantity of corrosive lympha that it was in a manner impossible to be 

 carried off by perspiration ; so that by stagnating in their bodies, it grew hot, 

 fermented, soured, and putrefied, from thence arose those corrosions, ulcers, 

 large imposthumes, mortifications, &c. 



All these patients ate very heartily to the last moment of their lives ; a sharp 

 humour, with which their stomachs always abounded, created in them a kind 

 of fames canina. 



Nothing is so apt to corrupt the blood as long abstinence ; the use of bad 

 food is still worse : cold stops the circulation of the blood, and makes it remain 

 too long in the j)arts, where it sours and soon corrupts ; sadness and grief 

 (which these people are subject to) is worse than all the rest: and what all 

 these may effect, when they meet altogether in one person, we may easily judge. 

 They produced there lymphas of different colours, with which the belly, the 

 breast, and several other parts of the bodies were filled ; and so caustic, that on 

 putting our hands into their dead bodies, the skin would come off, and the face 

 become ulcerated. So that we were obliged to rise in the night to wash our 

 faces with fresh water, to take off the inflammation. But what was very sur- 

 prising in this extraordinary disease, the brains of these people were always 

 very sound and entire. 



Extract of a Memoir, concerning the Discovery of a Passage by Land to 

 California; with a Description of that Country. By Francis Maria. J^icplp^ 

 N** 318, p. 232. ^ . I' ,' ^■■ 



California is pretty well placed in our common maps. The heats in summer 

 ^re very great along the sea-coasts ; and it seldom rains : but the air of the in- 

 land countries is more temperate, and the heats not so excessive. It is pro- 

 portionally the same in winter. In the rainy season there are floods ; but when 

 that is over, instead of rain, the dew falls in such plenty every morning, that 

 one would think it had rained ; which renders the earth very fruitful. In the 

 months of April, May, and June, there falls with the dew a sort of manna, 

 which congeals and hardens on the leaves of reeds, from whence they gather it: 

 it is as sweet as sugar, though not quite so white. 



The climate is very healthy ; and the country abounds in large plains, plea- 

 sant vallies, excellent pastures, at all time, for large and small cattle ; fine 



