500 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I76O. 



mained a cripple as long as he lived: whereas now, though 25 days from the time 

 of the accident, the muscles were so much weakened by his being confined to 

 his bed, and wasted by his frequently repeated purges, that they very easily gave 

 way, and the reduction was effected with as little difficulty as ever he saw in a 

 dislocation of the humerus. 



Might not the giving strong purgatives, and frequently repeating them, so as 

 to render the muscles of strong muscular subjects more lax and weak, be a means 

 of reducing luxations of the humerus, which are not reducible by any method 

 of extension, as is often found to be the case? 



LXXf^T. On a Samnite Etruscan Coin, never be/ore fully explained. By the 

 Rev. John Swinton, B. D., of Christ- Church, Oxon. F.R.S. p. 853. 

 This, according to Mr. S. is a silver Etruscan coin, of the size of the consular 

 denarii, similar to some published by Oliviari and others, and struck about theyear 

 of Rome 663. 



LXXVII. On the next approaching Transit of F^enus over the Sun. By Roger 



Joseph Boscovich.* p. 865. 



Such prognostications of the approaching transit are useless now. We shall 

 soon have occasion to contemplate the observations made on the real appearances 

 of it in the year ensuing. 



* This celebrated astronomer and mathenaatician was born at Ragusa in Dalmatia in 1711, and 

 died at Milan in 1787 : consequently at 76 years of age. He entered the order of the Jesuits at 

 Rome in l72o: in whose college there he was appointed professor of mathematics in 1740j where 

 he soon distinguished himself by a number of excellent astronomical and mathematical dissertations. 

 In 1750, assisted hy his brother Jesuit F. Maire, he conducted the measurement of a degree in the 

 ecclesiastical state- And through his influence with the ministers of other courts, it is said he pro- 

 cured to be made similar measurements, by Liesganigin Austria and Hungary, by Beccaria in Pied- 

 mont, and even by Mason and Dixon in America. He likewise effected the restoration of the cele- 

 brated gnomon at Florence. And in 1759 he published at Vienna his Philosophise Naturalis Theoria. 

 From Vienna he was called to Milan, where he taught astronomy and optics during 3 years. And 

 he may be considered as the founder of the observatory of the Jesuits in that cityj from which af\ 

 terwards arose the Imperial observatory of Brera. 



On the dissolution of the order of Jesuits in 1773, B. was invited to Paris, where he was natu- 

 ralized, and appointed a director of the optical instruments of the marine. But feeling disgusted 

 here at some envious attacks from the literati, he quitted France in 1783, and repaired once more to 

 Italy. B. was an elegant general scholar, and even a poet, as appears by his excellent poem on the 

 eclipses of the luminaries. The consideration vtrhich he enjoyed in several European courts implicated 

 him also in politics Hence the Republic of Lucca successfully settled through him a most important 

 state affair. 



In 1786 he published at Bassano a collection of all his works, in 4 volumes 4to. entitled Opera ad 

 Opticam et Astronomiam Pertinentia : also the Nautical Astronomy in a 5th vol. was published in 

 1787. B. wrote also Elements of Mathematics and Physics, and a treatise on Dioptrical Telescopes. 

 In the same year 1786 he went to Milan; where, at the desire of the emperor Joseph, he undertook 

 the superintendance of the measurement of a degree, and the formation of a new map of Lom- 

 bardy. But a stroke of the palsy put a period to all his useful labours the beginning of the year 

 following. 



