VOL. LII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 537 



for any person moderately skilled in such matters to construct tables of the mo- 

 tions of the satellites in the method of Mr. Pound, which may be seen in the 

 latter part of Halley's tables. 



XXI. Dissertationem hanc de Zoophytis, Regies Societati Scientiarum Anglice 



legendam et judicandam prcehet Job Baster, M.D.^ &c. p. 308. 



Dr. Baster's notions relative to corals and corallines being now entirely ex- 

 ploded, it is unnecessary to insert the present dissertation. We have therefore 

 only preserved the part relative to the figures represented on the accompanying 

 plate. 



Fig. 6, pi. 14, shows a branch of a zoophyte called corallina abietis forma. 

 About this branch, which was kept from Sept. 1758 to February 1759, was 

 collected a kind of bark or concretion of sordes. For at least five months fresh 

 water was supplied once a day, the old being thrown away ; and although it had 

 not grown much, yet it emitted small lateral branches in various parts which 

 were all beset with polypes. 



Fig. 7 shows the same branch viewed by a lens. The letters of reference are 

 the same in both figures ; viz. a, the trunk of the sertularia, which was seated 

 on an oyster-shell ; b, some lateral branches, which were here and there pro- 

 duced while he kept the coralline, and which were from the beginning beset with 

 polypes; c, the tip of a branch, recently produced, and perfectly free both from 

 sordes and polypes ; d, a larger kind of polypes, being the beginnings of the zoo- 

 phyte called corallina tubularia ; e, a very small species of polype shown in a mag- 

 nified state in the first part of Dr. B.'s work called Opuscula Subseciva, at tab. 

 3. f. A, B, c. Fig. 8, the summit c of the two former figures viewed microsco- 

 pically. A, the place where it has been pulled from the trunk ; b, two lateral 

 branches with polypes proceeding from them, as if from cells, and expanding 

 their arms at d; e, cellules, in which the polypes, when their arms are con- 

 tracted, entirely hide themselves, appearing at that time like white spots. 



XXII. Of an Uncommon Phenomenon in Dorsetshire. By John Stephens, M.A. 



p. 119- 

 In August 1751, the air, having been for some time remarkably hot and dry, 

 was changed of a sudden by a heavy fall of rain, and a high south-west wind ; 

 the cliffs near Charmouth, in the western part of Dorsetshire, presently after 

 this alteration of the atmosphere, began to smoke, and soon after they burned, 

 with a visible though a subtle flame for several days successively; and continued 

 to smoke, and sometimes to burn at intervals, till the approach of winter : nay, 

 ever since that time, especially after any great fall of rain, thunder and lightning, 

 or a high south-west wind (which drives the sea with great violence against the 



VOL. XI. 3 Z 



