VOL. XLIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 41 



Some Observations concerning the Planet Mercury. By John Bevis, M. D. 



N° 473, p. 48. 



The observations, to which the inclosed computations are made by Mr. Morris, 

 from somewhat more correct elements than those in Dr. Haller's tables, were 

 carefully taken by myself, with an excellent astronomical sector of 5 feet radius. 

 You will perceive how far I am limited, by my friend's request ; so must intreat 

 you, if you think it worth while, to inform the Royal Society that Mercury's 

 motion has not been at all disturbed, (by the late comet) to do it in what manner 

 you shall think best. 



Some calculated places of that planet are then set down, as well as the cor- 

 responding places, by observation, on the comparison of which, being found 

 generally to agree together within a few seconds, it is inferred, that the planet's 

 motions have not been disturbed, as above asserted. 



^ Rupture of the Navel, communicated to the Royal Society by H. JV, Taube, 



Surgeon N° 473, p. 50. 



Ann Stubbensfull had a very hard labour 17 years before her death, and 

 a little rupture appeared in her navel, and in the next labour it increased ; which 

 she endeavoured to cure by a bandage, but in vain ; so it continued to increase 

 more and more. 



The first time Mr. T. was called to her, was on account of a wound near the 

 place formerly made by uneasy trusses, where it looked as if it would mortify ; 

 which he cured, but left a place open as large as a half-crown, from which a great 

 quantity of water would sometimes run out ; but getting cold, it stopped ; and 

 the whole saccus was very much inflamed. 



She had once an obstructio alvi for 15 days; and nothing would do, till he 

 ordered her a glyster of tobacco boiled with urine. At last, she died maniacal. 

 Dr. Douglas and Mr. T. would have opened her, but her children would not 

 agree to it. 



Further Remarks concerning Mushrooms : occasioned by the Rev. Mr. Pickering's 

 Paper in the preceding Transactions, with Observations on the Poisonous Pro- 

 perty of some Sorts of Fungi. By Mr. tVm. Watson, F.R.S. N" 473, p. 51. 

 With regard to the seeds of mushrooms, though they were never shown to the 

 R. S. before, the fact was known to many of its members : for the industrious 

 Micheli not only raised mushrooms from their seeds, but has, in his tables, shown 

 the daily progress from their first point of vegetation, even to their perfect state. 



The fungus porosus crassus magnus is not the mushroom usually raised in 

 England for the table, as this gentleman imagined ; that name being given by 

 John Bauhin, in the 3d volume of his History (p. 833), to a species which is to 

 be distinguished from all other funguses, by the inferior substance not being di- 



VOL. IX. G 



