6l8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1755. 



has wheeled a while, it rests, and another turns out ; and sometimes 3 or 4 are 

 seen wheeling at a time. He had seen last year some much more regular, that 

 formed an orderly circle, with their crowns to the circumference, and their thin 

 bodies like so many radii joined to the centre. Their motion is all straight 

 towards the edge of the circle, and never to the right and left, as if every head 

 had its proper limits to act on. 



The fruit of the plant, which resembles an orange, has a kind of chain about 

 it, that turns as the crown does in the other insect. The trunk or stock of the 

 plant is its gut, or stomach ; for he saw, that something descended through it, 

 as it were through a gut. Besides it has no support of any fixed point, but is 

 always swimming in the ditch-water, but shows no great local motion. Other 

 insects were seen preying on it, which resemble small hogs, and are very busy in 

 eating its leaves, which are probably the cause of its looking so bleak and 

 withered when dead. 



XLI. New Astronomical and Physical Observations made in Asia ; and commu- 

 nicated by Mr. Porter, Ambassador at Constantinople, and F.R.S. p. 251. 



Observed Latitudes of the following places. 



Aleppo. Lat. North 36'' 12' Antioch 36" 10' 



Mount Cassius 36 4 Diarbekir 37 54 



Seleucia in Syria 36 3 Bagdad 33 1 9 54" 



Immersion of u Virginis under the Moon, observed June 10, 1753, at Diarbekir, 

 , near the Seraglio of the Bachaw. 



The Immersion of the Star at night 9** 48™ 4' 



The Emersion 9 39 47 



The nitre is produced by a combination of the universal acid with the natrum 

 of the ancients, as appears by observations. The asafoetida is drawn from a 

 ferulaceous plant of the thapsia kind, which is very common in Media, &c. 

 I have had the good luck to find the small nardus Indica: It is a gramineous 

 plant, of which some bear spicaceous flowers, both male and female, and others 

 only female ones. It is a valuable thing to botanists, as they are hitherto igno- 

 rant of the true genus of this plant, though the root has been in use ever since 

 the age of Dioscorides. This country is so dry, that electrical experiments often 

 succeed without any stand of bitumen, pitch, silk, glass, &c. Our carpets and 

 beavers are mostly sufficient to retain the electrical virtue, and prevent its spread- 

 ing to the floor. Ten men standing upright, one before the other, have been 

 made electrical, and, being touched, have produced sparks. 



