VOL. XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 379 



perfect analogy, to compare great things with small, between the highly elec- 

 trized glass jar, in the experiment of Leyden, and a cloud replete with the matter 

 of thunder. But more of this perhaps on some future occasion. 



" Though the number and continuance of the St. Helmo's fires, in the pas- 

 sage before mentioned, probably tended greatly to preserve the ship from the 

 destruction with which it was then threatened, yet the cause may be too great, 

 and come on too fast, to be lessened enough by these means to avert the mis- 

 chief. Thus in the account, published in the Philosophical Transactions,* from 

 captain John Waddel, his ship was almost beaten to pieces by the thunder and 

 lightning : though, as he expresses himself, there were sundry large comazants 

 over head, some of which settled on the spindles on the topmost heads, and 

 burnt like very large torches. When this account was written, these phenomena 

 were only considered as the presages or attendants of a storm, and no sort of in- 

 ference proposed from them." 



But to return to our author. His work closes with a series of experiments, 

 intended to demonstrate the validity of the conclusions exhibited in it. These 

 merit the particular attention of those conversant in these matters. It may be 

 further observed, that some of the experiments are made in vacuo, and are of 

 the same kind with those which Mr. W. communicated to the Royal Society in 

 February 1752 ; and which have been since published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions.-^ 



On the whole, he thinks this treatise a very valuable one, as it gives us the 

 still riper thoughts of an able writer on a difficult, and till very lately, an almost 

 unknown subject ; of one who, besides his inquiries into this part of philosophy, 

 has a great compass in the knowledge of nature, and is therefore well qualified to 

 investigate her phenomena. 



XXXI [. The Number of Persons in the City of Bristol, calculated from the 

 Burials for Ten successive Years, and also from the Number of Houses. By 

 John Browning, Esq. of Barton-hill near Bristol, p. 217. 



The certificates were obtained under the hands of the praecentor of the col- 

 lege, the several ministers of the 1 7 parish-churches, the register keeper of the 

 several quakers' cemeteries, the several Anabaptists' cemeteries, the Jews' new- 

 erected cemetery, for 10 years, including the year 1741 and 1750. As some of 

 the parishes within the liberties of the city extend beyond the liberties into the 

 counties of Gloucester and Somerset, they are distinguished by the names of the 

 out-parishes. The inhabitants of the several out-parishes being buried within 



• Vol. xlvi. p. 111. 

 + Vol. xlvii. p. 363, et seq. 

 3 C 2 



