VOL. XLIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. QS 



Martin had invented a micrometer, to be applied to any microscope; he an- 

 nounced that he had for several years made use of another kind of micrometer, 

 which he applied to one of Scarlet's microscopes, and placed it in the focus of 

 the first eye-glass. It was a very small piece of the thinnest black silk, divided 

 into very minute squares, and extended on a little ring of wood or paper, so as 

 to be conveniently placed in the focus of the first eye-glass. When he had 

 found that N" 1 of the microscope magnified 250 times, and that the animalcula 

 seminalia humana, without their tails, appeared hardly so large as a cheese mite 

 does to the naked eye, it became evident that 15,625,000 of these animalcules 

 were contained in the space of a cheese mite. And yet he observed much smaller 

 animalcules than these, in an infusion of common pepper, or even of common 

 hoy, after standing some days. By means of the same micrometer he determined 

 the number of seminal animalcules in the milt of a fish more accurately than had 

 been done by Leuwenhoeck. Hence he found that one cubical decimal line of a 

 foot in the milt of a carp, contained above 244 millions of seminal animalcules; 

 and that the whole milt, weighing not quite 2 lb. made about 2000 decimal lines, 

 and so contained more than 500000 millions of Seminal animalcules. 



Of the Gigantic Boy at IVillingham near Cambridge. By the Rev. Mr. jllmon. 

 Minister of the Parish, and Mr. Tho. Dawkes, Surgeon at Huntington. 

 N° 475, p. 249, 



The mother of this boy had been a servant in Mr. Almon's family. He was 

 her 2d child, and at his birth, had something vei-y extraordinary about him 

 above other infants; particularly in partibus generationis ; besides being uncom- 

 monly large in his whole body. He grew wonderfully for ^ of a year, having 

 only the breast sustenance ; when his mother died suddenly, and, as is supposed, 

 by his drawing away her vital nourishment. 



After her death, he has continued growing in proportion: and, though but 2 

 years and 1 1 months old, was 3 feet 9 inches high; and every part in proportion; 

 his strength and courage such as to overcome boys of 6, 7, or 8 years of age; his 

 voice like a man's, very coarse; his weight above 4 stone; and he appeared to 

 have as much understanding as a boy of 5 or 6 years old. But, what is most 

 surprising, his penis was 4 inches long when erect, and S-jV inches as pendent; 

 the hair on the pubis an inch long and thick. 



He was very strong: he took up and threw from him, with much facility, a 

 blacksmith's hammer, which weighed 17 lb. 



The glans of the penis was quite uncovered; and his aunt and the midwife as- 

 serted that it was always so. 



His father is a little man, a labourer: his mother was a woman of a middle 

 stature. The midwife said, that when he was first born, he was what they com- 



