522 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 175-J. 



rapacious antimonial semimetal ; which last has been hitherto esteemed the 

 severest test of gold, so as to have received the appellation of balneum solius 

 solis, the bath which gold alone can sustain, and in which it is washed from all 

 kinds of impurities. 



Since therefore platina mixed with gold is not discoverable by any of the ope- 

 rations by which that metal is usually assayed or refined, nor by the hydrostatic 

 balance ; Mr. L. hoped that these papers, which contain part of the history of 

 this extraordinary and till then unknown mineral, and the methods of distin- 

 guishing any sophistications of gold made by its means, which might otherwise 

 have passed undiscovered, would be candidly received by the r. s. as a means of 

 promoting that kind of knowledge, for which that illustrious body had been ever 

 eminent,* 



LXXXVll, An Explication of all the Inscriptions in t/ie Pahnyrene Language 

 and Character hitherto published. By the Rev. John Stvinton, M. A. of Christ- 

 Church. Oxford, and F. R. S. p. 690. 



Mr. S. states in this learned dissertation, that on examining the plates ex- 

 hibited in the magnificent work entitled the Ruins of Palmyra, he had, by the 

 help of the Greek inscriptions, corresponding with those in thePalmyrene charac- 

 ter, been able to make out the Palmyrene alphabet, which he makes appear from 

 the accompanying tables, to which is added the alphabet of the same language, as 

 given by Spon and Gruter. For the Palmyrene inscriptions themselves, with the 

 interpretations and the comments on them, the philological and antiquarian reader 

 is referred to the original Transactions, as they would not admit of abridgment, 

 and would have occupied too much space had they been retained entire. See 

 these alphabets and numerals engraven in pi. 14. 



LXXXVIIl. Extract of a Letter from John Lining, M.D. of Charlestown, in 

 South Carolina, to Charles Pinckney, Esq. in London : with his Answers to 

 several Queries sent to him concerning his Experiment of Electricity with a 

 Kite. Dated Charlestown, Jan. i4, 1754. p. 757- 



Inclosed are answers to the queries sent me concerning the experiment with 

 the kite. Since making that experiment last May, I have not had an opportu- 

 nity of making any more, having been confined all the summer and autumn 

 with the gout, which perhaps prevented my meeting with the same unhappy fate 

 with Professor Richman of Petersburg. It appears that the professor had a wire, 

 which came down from the iron rod, erected on his house, through the gallery- 

 ceiling, to an iron bar, which stood in a glass vessel, filled with water and filings 

 of brass ; and that the professor stood so near that iron rod, that his face was 



