318 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747. 



On opening him, nothing uncommon was found, nor was the blood in this 

 creature's heart so thick as in the former. The crural vein did not bleed from a 

 large orifice, after the poison was infused, though it was likely to do it before. 

 But as some authors have said, that birds in particular are instantly deprived of 

 life, if the least particle of certain poisons are infused into the blood, he had a 

 mind to try one experiment, and to this end infused a few drops of the solution 

 into a cuticular wound of a small bird. This occasioned hanging of the feathers, 

 and a stupor, in less than 10 minutes, and killed him in somewhat more than 15. 



He gave about 2 drs. of sugar to another bird of the same kind, and shortly 

 afterwards poured a little of the solution into its mouth ; but two drops had 

 scarcely touched his tongue before the creature was convulsed, and he could 

 hardly lay him down before all motion was taken away. He gave these 1 birds 

 to 2 cats ; and the cats made so uncommon a noise the whole night, that they 

 disturbed the family's rest. 



From these experiments we find that the supposed specific is of no manner of 

 use, even when the poison is only taken at the mouth ; and from them it may 

 appear probable, that the poison is nearly on the same footing with white arsenic 

 in the cure of the tooth-ach. 



On the Moons Motion. By Mr. Richard Dunthorne. N° 482, p. 412. 



In the preface to his lunar tables, Mr. D. hinted, that one use of publishing 

 those tables would be, the assisting of persons desirous further to rectify the 

 lunar astronomy, by enabling them more readily to compare the Newtonian 

 theory with observations. After publishing those tables he spent some time in 

 that comparison. As the motion of every secondary planet must partake of the 

 errors in the theory of its primary, he thought proper, before he undertook the 

 examination of the lunar numbers, to compare those of the sun with observa- 

 tions. He compared several sets of Mr. Flamsteed's observations, after the me- 

 thod he himself teaches, in Prolegom. Hist. Coelest. p. 133, et seq. which, for 

 many reasons, he thinks the best method hitherto used ; and determined the 

 mean motion of the sun at Greenwich, the last day of December at noon. Anno 

 1700, o.s. VJ 20° 43' 40"; of its apogee, 25 7° 30' 0"; and the gi'eatest equation 

 of the sun's centre, 1° 55' 40* ; which he is fully persuaded are very near the truth. 



The theory of the sun being thus settled, he proceeded to examine the elements 

 of the lunar astronomy. He began with observations of lunar eclipses about the 

 equinoxes, when the apogee of the moon was in the sun's quadratures ; because 

 at those times he could conceive the moon's motion affected with no inequality, 

 besides the annual one, called by Newton the first equation, and the elliptic one, 

 called prosthaphaeresis : from a comparison of such observations he obtained the 

 moon's mean longitude, which came out l', at least, greater than in the tables, 

 and very nearly as Newton has it in the last edition of his Principia. 



