VOL. XLI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQS 



years was very slow, but afterwards very fast, he was rendered quite incapable of 

 labour from the time of hay-harvest 1735. 



Oil taking off the limb in May 1737, it weighed, with the leg and foot, 

 69 lb. which was 27 more than the leg some years before taken off at St. 

 Bartholomew's hospital by Mr. Gay, for the like disorder. 



On examining this tumour, the adjacent muscles were found destitute of 

 their fibrous and fleshy appearance, probably from the pressure, and great ex- 

 tension, which they had suffered, and the little motion which for some years 

 they had employed on the tarsus and toes ; but the fasciae and common mem- 

 branes of the muscles, being greatly thickened and callous, adhered to the sub- 

 jacent tumour; and on removing this callous integument, the tumour appeared 

 covered with great quantities of blood-vessels, much distended, and of a colour 

 more intensely red than natural. 



The tumour itself was cartilaginous for the space of half an inch from its 

 external surface ; from whence it formed numberless bony substances of various 

 forms, colours, and consistences, which, growing more and more numerous 

 as they lay deeper, at last formed a continual substance completely ossified : 

 in the centre of this bony substance was found about a quart of mucilaginous 

 liquor, no ways fetid, though it was then 10 days from the operation, the 

 colour and consistence of which nearly resembled that of linseed oil ; in which 

 were observed many little bony substances loose and floating, similar to many 

 others adhering to the internal surface of the cavity, all which had nearly the 

 appearance of those irregular incrustations, which in hollow rocks are some- 

 times made by the dropping of petrifying waters. After the operation, every 

 circumstance of the cure proceeded well and the stump healed. 



Mr. P. thinks it worthy of remark that the parts above the tumour were 

 very little altered from their natural state. The cartilaginous extremity of the 

 femur was perfectly smooth ; nor had the rotula suff^ered any other injury, ex- 

 cept the ossification of the ligament by which it is fixed to the tibia ; but the 

 superior extremity of the fibula was wholly lost in the tumour. 



An Experiment concerning the Spirit of Coals. By the late Rev. John Clayton, 



D. D. N° 452, p. 59. 



Mention is here made of a ditch, 2 miles from Wigan in Lancashire, the water 

 in which would seemingly burn like brandy, the flame being so fierce, that 

 several strangers boiled eggs over it ; the neighbouring people indeed aflirmed, 

 that about 30 years before it would have boiled a piece of beef; and that whereas 

 much rain formerly made it burn much fiercer, now after rain it would scarcely 

 burn at all. It was after a long continued season of rain that Dr. C. went 

 to see the place, and make some experiments, when he found that a lighted 



