456 PHILOSOPHICAL fRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747-8. 



to be capped with brass cemented to the ends of the tube. In the centre of 

 each of these caps was fastened a slender brass rod ; and these were disposed so in 

 the tube, as to come within lialf an inch of each other. When the tube was 

 properly suspended in silk lines, with one of its extremities near a glass globe in 

 motion, the brass work at both ends snapped equally strong. As the electricity 

 could not pass along the surface of this tube wanned and wiped clean, this effect 

 could not have happened, unless the electricity pervaded the substance of the 

 brass caps. On touching the brass at the end of the tube most remote from 

 the electrifying machine, the snaps from one of the brass rods within the tube 

 to the other were seen to correspond with the snaps without. More experiments 

 of this kind might be added, but these he presumes, are sufficient to show, that 

 the electricity occupies the whole masses of non-electric bodies electrised. 



Mr. W. mentions a series of experiments he had made in vacuo; from the 

 comparison of which with the experiments in open air, it appears that our atmo- 

 sphere, when dry, is the agent by which, with the assistance of other electrics 

 per se, we are enabled to accumulate electricity in and upon non-electrics ; that 

 is, to communicate to them a greater quantity of electricity than they naturally 

 have: hence also we see, that on the removal of the air, the electricity 

 pervades the vacuum to a considerable distance, and manifests its effects on any 

 non-electrics, which terminate that vacuum : and by these means that originally- 

 electric bodies, even in their most perfect state, put on the appearance of non- 

 electrics, by becoming the conductors of electricity. 



On the Bones of a Foetus being Discharged through an Ulcer near the Navel. 

 By Mr. Francis Drake, Surgeon, F.R.S. N°485, p. 121. 



The wife of James Burman, labourer, at Scawby near Brigg in Lincolnshire, 

 was about 29 years of age when she married. About two years after, having had 

 a child at full time, she conceived again, and went regularly on for 4 months. 

 She then got a fall, and about 3 weeks after felt a load in her belly, which con- 

 tinued, on the right side of the same, between 2 and 3 years. The woman 

 then grew very big with another child, which pressed so much on the lump as 

 to give her great uneasiness. However, she went on to her time with her 

 double burden ; and 34- years after the accidental fall, she was delivered of a live 

 child at full growth : from which time she became worse, with violent pain 

 about the navel, and an inflamed tumour appeared near that part. On applica- 

 tion to a neighbouring surgeon, fomentations were used, which produced a 

 suppuration at a small breach near the navel. The surgeon did not know what 

 to make of this swelling, and therefore did not venture to enlarge the orifice ; but 

 it continued discharging a fetid purulent matter for three or four months longer. 



About a year, or more, after her last delivery, the woman was suddenly seized 



