358 FHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1753. 



and perhaps from the shape of its blade, which increases in breadth all the way 

 towards the handle ; for, by this means, the punctures are so exactly filled up by 

 the blade, that very little of the aqueous humour is discharged before you begin 

 to make the incision, and consequently during this time, the cornea preserves its 

 convexity; whereas by using one instrument to puncture, and others to dilate, 

 the cornea immediately becomes flaccid on the issue of the aqueous humour, 

 and renders the operation tedious and embarrassing, as he himself had found by 

 experience in one patient, on whom he had performed the incision of the cornea 

 with a pair of scissars, as recommended by Mons. Daviel. 



XXV. Experiments on Fish and Flesh preserved in Lime-waler. By Francis 



Hume, M.D. p. l63. 



With a design to find out how long he could keep fish and flesh fit to eat in 

 lime-water. Dr. H. put two haddocks, and a pound of beef, in different pots 

 full of lime-water, and corked them well, setting them in a cellar 18 days. He 

 then took out one of the fish; it was sweet, sound, and firm. He boiled one 

 part of it, and he broiled the other; it eat well, and had not the least taste of 

 lime-water; but was not quite so firm as a fresh fish. But when he opened the 

 beef-jx)t, to his great surprise, it stunk abominably. He poured the lime-water 

 from both pots, and put in fresh lime-water. This stood 4 weeks longer; the 

 remaining fish was quite fresh, and a little swelled, but when boiled, it dissolved 

 to a jelly. The flesh was very putrid. 



Thus lime-water appears to presei-ve fish, but not flesh. 



Dr. Alston's experiment was made with fish, and Dr. Pringle's with flesh; 

 which made the former say, that lime-water withstood corruption strongly; and 

 that the latter did it but weakly, if at all. 



Dr. H. afterwards repeated the experiment more fully, and with the same suc- 

 cess. On the !26th of March, he put a haddock into a pot of common water. 

 He did the same to a piece of beef: the water was changed every day. At the 

 same time he put a haddock into a pot of lime-water, and did the same with a 

 piece of beef; at the same time he hung a fish and a bit of flesh in the air. On 

 the 2d of April the fish and flesh in the air were a little corrupted and dried; 

 the flesh and fish in common water smelt strong; the fish in the lime-water was 

 sweet, and the lime-water good, and are so at present, April 0; but the flesh 

 smelt rather worse than that in common water changed every day, and the cor- 

 ruption had quite overpowered the smell of the lime-water. 



XXVL A Letter from Mr. James Short, F. R. S. to the Earl of Macclesfield, 

 P. R. S. concerning a Paper of the late Servington Savery, Esq. relating to 

 his Invention of a New Micrometer. Dated May JO, 1753. p. l65. 



It is now above a year, Mr. Short says, since he received a letter from 



