698 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1755. 



LXXXI. On the Agitation of the /Voters, Nov. 1, 1755, in Scotland and at 

 Hamburgh. Communicated by John Pringle, M.D.,F.R.S. p. 550. 



About 10 o'clock of the forenoon of Nov. 1, a gentleman at Queen's-ferry, 

 a sea-port town on the Frith of Forth, about 7 miles higher up than Leith, ob- 

 served the water rise very suddenly, and return again with the same motion, 

 which he judged to be about 12 or 18 inches perpendicular, which made the 

 barks and boats then afloat run forwards and backwards on their ropes with great 

 rapidity; and this continued for 3 or 4 minutes, it being then calm; but after 

 the 2d or 3d rush of water it was always less. 



The following phenomena are well vouched to have happened at Hamburgh, 

 the 1st of November 1755. In one of the churches many persons, that were 

 present, observed an agitation of the branched candlesticks hanging from the 

 roof, about 1 in the afternoon. In another church, the cover of the baptistery 

 hanging from the roof was also remarked to be agitated ; and the like motions 

 are said to have happened in other churches. Also the water in the canal 

 through the town, and in the river Alster, was agitated the same day. It is de- 

 scribed first to have formed several gentle whirlpools, thence to have risen more 

 and more imjjetuously, throwing about mud brought up from the bottom, and 

 at last to have subsided with a copious white froth. The Elbe rose in some 

 places still more violently. 



LXXXI I. Microscopical Observations : in a Letter from Edivard Wright, Esq. 

 dated at Paris, Dec. l6, 1755. p. 553. 



It appears from the experiments of M. de BufFon and Mr. Needham, that 

 animal and vegetable substances infused in boiling water, put into bottles com- 

 pletely filled, and so closely stopped that no air -can enter, and even kept for 

 'some time in hot ashes, that in case there should be any latent ova of insects 

 they may effectually be destroyed; yet it appears from the said experiments, that 

 such substances, notwithstanding such precautions, afford microscopical animal- 

 cules of various kinds, and that sooner or later, according to the greater or less 

 degree of exaltation in the substances. Hence they conclude, that there is a 

 real productive force in nature, by which these animalcula are formed. 



Having read the accounts of these experiments, Mr. W. was desirous to make 

 some of the same kind, which he accordingly did, in the summer of the year 

 1752. Though the greatest part of the animal substances, on which he made 

 any experiments, treated in the manner above-mentioned, yielded, sooner or 

 later, great numbers of microscopical animalcules; yet most of the vegetable 

 substances, whether from the coldness of the season, which was not very favour- 

 able that year, or through some fault in preparing the infusion, entirely failed, 

 and underwent a fermentation, without ever giving the smallest signs of any 

 thing endowed with life. 



