600 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1733. 



which is not raised up till the last, and that by the continuance of a very strong 

 reverberatory fire. 



But an operator that is not well exercised in the degrees of fire, and does 

 not know how and when to take away these oils apart, will have nothing but a 

 volatile salt, and fetid oil, and get at last only a little unctuous opaque phos- 

 phorus ; such as the famous Kunckel, Dr. KrafFt, and Brandt did, as they ac- 

 knowledge in their writings ; but not our hard transparent glacial phosphorus.* 

 Since Kunckel therefore, and his followers, were never able to make the true 

 solid glacial phosphorus, it was absurd for him to write, that he could make it 

 even out of crude indigested things, in their natural state : for either this 

 famous man spoke too much at large, and had never tried the experiments, or 

 else he must design to impose upon the world: for Mr. H. says he can boldly 

 contradict him in this point, from the several experiments he has made, but 

 never found any true phosphorus, except in such things as had undergone di- 

 gestion in animals. And he knows himself to have been for these 40 or 50 

 years, that is, ever since he left the laboratory of his master, the Hon. Mr. 

 Boyle, the only person in Europe able to make and produce in any quantity the 

 true solid phosphorus. 



Mr. H. did not content himself with working on the urinous sapo of man 

 only, but examined likewise the excrements of other animals; as for example, 

 of horses, cows, sheep, &c. and got phosphorus, but not in so great quantities 

 as from man; probably because they feed on nothing but vegetables. He then 

 examined the dens of lions, tigers, and bears, making experiments on their 

 excrements, and likewise on those of cats and dogs, which being carnivorous 

 animals, he obtained more phosphorus thence than from the other creatures : 

 his curiosity led him likewise to the rats-nests, and mouse-holes, and he had 

 phosphorus thence. He then addressed himself to the feathered tribe, visit- 

 ing the hens' roosts, and pigeon-houses, and got some small matters thence 

 also : he emptied the guts of fish in order to get their excrements, and had a 

 little phosphorus from these, but none from the fishes by themselves. 



He was next induced, by Kunckel's assertion, to try what he could obtain 

 out of crude vegetables, viz. corn and other fruit: he thought that putrefac- 

 tion would bring them the nearest to an ammoniac and urinous state, because 

 of the heat produced in them by it; but his labour was all in vain. After these 

 experiments, he took in hand fossils and minerals : he began with the common 

 fossil coal, thinking that the phlogiston in this bituminous substance might 



» On this subject tlw reader is referred to p. 48,0, Vol. II. also to a note at p. 478, Vol. 111. of 

 these Abridgments. 



