4^8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1741. 



being propagated among Jews, Pagans, and Christians, at all times ; with an 

 account of Jewish, civil, and canon laws made against such as were reputed 

 hermaphrodites, as well as those that were always in force at Rome, by which 

 great numbers of people were destroyed from time to time. 



1. The 1 St chapter exhibits many reasons against a possibility of their exist- 

 ence in human nature ; with a true discovery of such diseases as have been the 

 cause of men and women being called hermaphrodites. 



3. The 2d chapter is a critical account of the causes authors have assigned 

 for the produce of hermaphrodites ; wherein it is proved, that no such effects 

 could arise from those causes ; and several absurdities are exposed in the argu- 

 ments advanced for the support of this error. 



4. The 3d chapter is a critical view of the histories of hermaphrodites given 

 by several authors ; showing that those so reputed were either perfect men or 

 women, having only some deformity or disease in the parts of generation. 



3. The conclusion describes the state of all female foetuses, with some ob- 

 servations which the author laid before the R. S. ; which prove that every female 

 foetus may as well be thought an hermaphrodite, as any that were ever so 

 called. 



Of an ancient Date in Arabian Figures, on the North Front of the Parish 

 Church of Rum^ey in Hamphire. By the Rev. Mr. fVilliam Barlow. 

 N° 459, P- 632. 



As the knowing how long the Arabian or Indian figures have been used in 

 the west, may sometimes be a means of distinguishing spurious from genuine 

 dates ; so a wrong hypotheses may possibly induce us to suspect genuine dates 

 to be doubtful or spurious. To give some light to this subject, Mr. B. has sent 

 a draught of part of the north front of the abbey (now parish) church of Rum- 

 sey, in the county of Southampton, with an inscription on it, represented fig. g, 

 pi. g. That this inscription is a date, 101 1, is evident from the figures. That 

 it is a genuine date, the apparent antiquity of the building plainly demonstrates. 

 A spurious date in this place would have expressed the time when the abbey 

 was founded by King Edward, grandfather of Edgar, above 100 years before 

 the time here mentioned. 



There is something very remarkable with regard to the time when this 

 church was built. Not only during the year of this date, 1011, but for several 

 years before, many parts of England were laid waste by the revenging Danes, 

 justly incensed against the English by the massacre of their countrymen in the 

 year 1002. The Saxon Chronicle, p. 141, acquaints us, that the county of 



