VOL. XXVI.] ' PHILOSaPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 485 



two or three accurate trials succeeded alike. Now since there is is so small an 

 inequality between bodies of the same species weighed in water, whose dispro- 

 portions of surfaces are, as 1 to 255, (for I reckon the sides of all the tinsel 

 bodies to be equal to the sides of the single brass piece,) I must conclude, that 

 those bodies must be infinitely small, whose inequality of surfaces to their bulks 

 exceeds those in this experiment. 



But though the disproportions of the surfaces of bodies, to their bulk of 

 matter, be very great ; yet that that is the only reason why a metallic body 

 should be suspended in a menstruum specifically lighter than itself, is very 

 doubtful : for certainly if it was so, we might reasonably have expected to have 

 met with a much greater difference in the bodies made use of in the newly re- 

 cited experiment : for there it should seem necessary, that where we had so 

 great a difference in point of superficies, there we should also have had a differ- 

 ence somewhat proportional in point of weight ; which yet did not happen. I 

 think therefore that there must be some other agent, or quality, not only to 

 assist, but govern in the case. And what is called a corroding menstruum, I 

 take to be a fluid adapted to attract such or such a body, as we find none of 

 them operate alike on all ; but aqua regia is adapted to separate the parts of gold, 

 and aquafortis those of silver : now this separation of their parts seems to pro- 

 ceed from a mutual attraction between the menstruum and to the body im- 

 mersed, and both seem to act on each other with greater vigour, than either of 

 their own particles act on their contiguous ones ; by which means a separation 

 of parts must needs ensue. Thus being at liberty, they with the menstruum 

 become as one body, and remain suspended in any part of it by their mutual 

 attraction. And that one menstruum in this case should afi^ect one body more 

 than another, is no more extraordinary than that the magnet should affect iron 

 only. 



An Account of some Inundations y Monstrous Births^ Appearances in the Heavens, 

 &c. By Mr. Neve. With Observations on a SoJar and a Lunar Eclipse. 

 By Mr. Derham. N° 320, p. 308. 



On the 7th of October, 1706, after a very rainy day, and a southerly wind, 

 there happened a prodigious flood, which broke down several bridges, and the 

 sides of some of the mountains in the north of Ireland. It came down in vast 

 torrents from some of the mountains, and drowned a great number of black 

 cattle and sheep, spoiled a great deal of corn and hay in the stacks, laid many 

 houses 2 or 3 feet deep in water, and broke down several forge and mill- 

 dams. 



Also on July 3, 1 707, there happened another flood, which came so sud- 



