VOL. XXXVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 407 



just SO far as he might be sure not to touch them with that end, and then im- 

 mediately drew it from thence downward to the bottom of the lowest bar : after 

 the same manner, placing the armour of the south pole on the middle of the 

 lowest bar, and holding the armed north pole on one side, that it might not 

 touch, he drew it upward to the top of the highest bar, whose top he could 

 reach. And if the end of any bar was a little under that which it rested against, 

 he used to put a sizeable chip under it, that the armour might not hitch in 

 drawing it over the places of their contacts. He usually touched the bars on 

 all their 4 sides, then took out the lowest, and, letting the rest gently slide 

 down to the iron pin, placed it at the top, that those which were first at the 

 top might in their turns take their places in the middle, and be well touched. 



When he found those on the board considerably stronger than his armed 

 one, he took out that he thought attracted best, and bound the armour to it, 

 putting the other in its room. After several repeated touchings, the largest of 

 them, being 3 lb. avoirdupois, would be suspended by its north pole to the 

 south pole of one of the best of the others. They did not lift each other, or 

 attract so well when their ends were applied centrally, as when applied to each 

 other a little from the centers, near to their opposite comers. And Mr. S. 

 never saw this communication of magnetism outdone by the loadstone itself, as 

 it is commonly used. 



He usually finds the attractive power in square bars, cut plain over transverse 

 to their lengths, to be strongest, not in the middle of their ends, but much 

 nearer to their corners or sides, and to be greater at one corner or side than 

 another ; and this not only in such as are of touched steel, but in iron ones 

 having no polarity, but from their position. The same he observed in round 

 bars, if their ends are not convex. In some of his large steel bars, as also in 

 some of the round bars, he found the north pole strongest, in others the 

 south. 



The Use of the Bile in the Animal Economy, founded on an Observatioji of a 



Wound in the Gall-Bladder. By Alexander Stuart, M. D. F. R. S. N° 4 1 4, 



p. 34]. 



One Mr. Menzies, of the horse guards, was wounded Oct. 30, 1728, and 

 died Nov. 5 following, being the 7th day after the accident, in the 40th 

 year of his age. 



Dr. Stuart was called Nov. 2, being the 4th day after the patient received the 

 wound. The surgeons who had before attended being present, said that his 

 belly had been distended, as then, from the beginning, giving the appearance 

 of a tympany, or ascites, and it continued at the same pitch of distension, 



