VOL. XLVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 229 



again the lying stories of Pivati, &c. He finishes this dissertation, by deducing 

 several conclusions from what he has premised, which are as follow : 



1. That electricity may be advantageously applied to medicinal purposes. 2. 

 That it augments the natural transpiration of animals. 3. That this acceleration 

 of transpiration in men is through the exhaling capillary vessels, and not through 

 the subcutaneous glands. 4. That the nervous fluid may be called the electrical 

 fluid. 5. That the nerves subservient to sensation are not different from those 

 subservient to motion. 6. That the immediate cause of the hemiplegia is the 

 immeability of the nervous fluid through the nerves. 7. That of all other dis- 

 tempers the hemiplegia seems most properly the object of electricity. 8. That 

 it may be of use also in intermitting fevers. Q. That a palsy in the left side of 

 the body is owing to the right side of the brain, and vice versa. 10. That anger, 

 the parent of immerous evils, is sometimes useful to paralytics. ] 1. That as long 

 as the paralytic limbs are rigid, it is an argument, that the bursal ligaments of 

 the joints, and the sheaths of the tendons, are deficient in the fluid adapted by 

 nature for their lubrication. 12. That every species of palsy does not arise from • 

 the nerves being either obstructed or compressed. 



Lf^I. Of a Horizontal Top. invented by Mr. Serson By Mr. James Short, 



F.R.S. p. 352. 



, The horizontal top, the invention of Mr. Serson, who was unfortunately lost 

 in his majesty's ship the Victory, is pretty well known. This ingenious person 

 found, that when this top is set a going in the proper way, its upper side, which 

 is polished, about 2 minutes after it was set up, moved in such a manner, as to 

 give a true horizontal plane ; and that this plane was not at all disturbed by any 

 motion or inclination you give the box, in which it is placed, and therefore might 

 be proper to be used aboard a ship ; by which means seamen might be enabled to 

 take the altitude of the sun or stars, in order to find their latitude, even though 

 they cannot see the horizon in thick hazy weather. Some gentlemen were of 

 opinion, that the air had some share in the cause of this horizontality. Mr. 

 Short therefore applied to Mr. Smeaton, who had the best air-pump he ever saw, 

 all of his own invention and construction. Having set the top a going, they put 

 a receiver over it, and immediately exhausted the air. By repeated trials it had 

 been found that the top, when set a going in the open air, played or spun during 

 the space of 35 minutes of time, from the instant of its being set up till it had 

 lost the circular motion : but they found, that in the exhausted receiver it playal 

 or spun during the space of 2 hours \6 minutes, preserving a perfect horizontality 

 for the space of 4 of an hour ; and therefore, that the air has no share at all in 

 the cause of its horizontality, but that the air is a great impediment to its 

 motion. 



