VOL. XLVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 219 



with the inhabitants than other wood, but is usai by them as fuel, and applied 

 to other ilomestic purposes. Probably the prohibition of sending cinnamon-trees 

 from Ceylon is of no long standing, as Paul Herman, who resided there some 

 time, and was after his return chosen professor of botany at Leyden, tells us, in 

 his Hortus Lugduni-Batavus, published in l687, that he sent several of these 

 trees to some considerable persons in Holland, and that they continued also as 

 well in the gardens of others, as in his own, for 2 or 3 years, and were killed 

 by a severe winter. Mr. W. was credibly informed, that 3 of these trees in pots 

 were presented to the late King William, by whom they were placed in the 

 garden at Hampton-court, and were intended to be sent to Jamaica, as a country 

 proper for their increase, under the care of the earl of Inchiquin, who was then 

 going thither as governor. But for want of attention these trees were left be- 

 hind ; and as the knowledge of hot-houses, as we now see them, was unknown, 

 and the state of gardening otherwise extremely low, these invaluable trees were 

 suffered to die here ; whereas had they been planted in some of our islands in 

 America between the tropics, in all probability before this time we might have 

 been supplied from them, and large sums been annually saved to the public, as 

 great quantities of cinnamon are consumed in diet and medicine. 



XLVII, Observations and Experiments on Animal Bodies, Digested in a Philo- 

 sophical Analysis, or Inquiry into the Cause of Voluntary Muscular Motion. 

 By Charles Morton* M. D., F. R. S. p. 305. 



The author of this paper is led by the experiments to which he refers, and the 

 arguments he employs, to the following conclusions : viz. that a muscle being 

 given, in its natural state, in a living animal body, the blood, which is present 

 in every part of its contracting substance, and which, in effect, to the sense of 

 the given muscle, (which is occasionally rendered more acute) puts on an in- 



* Dr. Charles Morton was bom in Westmorland, about the year 17 16, and was a practising' ph}'- 

 sician at Kendal in 1745. In 1744' he married Miss Mary Berkeley, niece of I^dy Betty Germaine. 

 His second wife was Lady Saville, mother of Sir Geo. S., to whom he was married in 1772, and who 

 died Feb. 1791. The latter part of the same year, when he was 75 years of age, he married his third 

 wife. Miss Eliz. Pratt, a near relation of Lady Saville. And he died at his apartments in the British 

 Museum in Feb. 1799, being about S3 years of age. In 1751 Dr. M. was admitted a licentiate of 

 the College of Physicians ; and on the establishment of the British Museum in 1756", he was appointed 

 under librarian of the M.S. and medal department; and in \7Tt), he succeeded Dr. Maty as principal 

 librarian, which he enjoyed till his death. In 176O he succeeded Peter Duval as Secretary to the 

 R. s., which situation he resigned in 1774, when he was succeeded by Dr. Horsley, now the learned 

 Bishop of St. Asaph. Dr. M. has only 2 papers in the Philos. Trans, viz. that above abstracted, and 

 another in vol. 59, on a supposed connection between the writing of ancient Egypt and China. In 

 1759 he published an improved edition of Dr. Barnard's engraved Table of Alphabets. And, in 

 1772, Whitlockes Journal of the Swedish Embassy in l6'53, l654. Dr. M. was a man of a sweet 

 and amiable disixwition, of great uprightness and integrity, and much admired as a scholar. 



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