500 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1731. 



Thus it appears that tliis simple water distilled from a vegetable, is equally 

 mortal with the bite of the rattle-snake, and more quick in its operation than 

 any mineral poison ; and though it may not immediately bring on death, when 

 taken in small quantities, or mixed with other liquors, it being common among 

 our good housewives to put laurel leaves into cream to give it the rattafia or 

 apricot-kernel flavour ; and some compounders of cordial waters, to use the 

 berries of this plant in brandy instead of black-cherries, to mix some of the 

 distilled poisonous water with brandy to make rattafia, or to dilute it with com- 

 mon water, till it resembles black-cherry water in taste; though one single 

 draught at a time may not prove immediately mortal, yet the habitual use of these 

 liquors must be exceedingly prejudicial and unwholesome, and in weakly persons 

 must hasten death. 



Dr. M. was informed that a gentleman and his wife, who used for several 

 years to drink daily a dram or two of brandy in which laurel berries had been 

 infused, both died paralytic, having lost their speech some time before. 



Contimiation of an Account of Mr. Mark Catesbij's Essay towards a Natural 

 History of Carolina and the Bahama Islands. By Dr. Mortimer, Sec. R. S, 

 ]S° 420, p. 174. 



This is an account of several kinds of birds, 8cc. 



A Solar Eclipse observed at Pehin, July 15, 1730, N. S, By the Fathers 

 Koegler and Pereyra. N" 420, p. 179- 



At 0*" 2™, p. M. at the centre, or 6 digits eclipsed. 



5 ) the greatest obscuration 9 dig. 54'. 



1 2 the emersion. 



1 39 emersion of the centre. 



2 171 the end of the eclipse. 



Some Immersions and Emersions of Jupiter's Satellites observed at Pekin. By 

 the same. N° 420, p. 1 82. 



Omitted as unimportant. 



An extraordiiiary Impostumation of the Liver. By Thomas Short, M. D. 

 N°420, p. 184. 



Dr, .Short had a patient, who died lately of an impostumation of the liver. 

 He opened him, and out of the lowest and thinnest lobes he took 6 quarts of 



