030 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO J 762. 



^^The gentlemen of the academy were of opinion that the disease, of which M. 

 Noel had sent an account, was produced by bad nourishment, particularly by 

 bread, in which there was a great quantity of ergot.* This substance is described 

 by M. Fagon, first physician to the king, and is said by him to be a kind of 

 monster in vegetation, which a particular sort of rye, sown in March, is more 

 apt to produce, than what is sown in the autumn, and which often abounds in 

 flioist cold countries, and in wet seasons. How far it is true, that this substance 

 was really the cause of the French epidemical gangrene described, I cannot de- 

 termine. On comparison, we find that the present disease at Wattisham, and 

 that recorded by the French academy, do agree extremely in their eflfects. How- 

 ever, it is now certain that rye made no part of the nourishment of the poor family 

 at Wattisham. Though we undoubtedly excel the ancients in the knowledge of 

 poisons, yet a great deal of that subject still remains unknown to us. It will 

 therefore be very difficult for us to discover to what cause, or to what combination 

 of causes, so uncommon a malady is to be attributed. 



LXXXVL Observations for Proving the Going of Mr. EllicotCs Clock at St. 

 I ^ Helena. Bu Mr. Charles Mason, p. 534. 



In Mr. Mason's return from the Cape of Good Hope, the clock, used in the 

 (observations made there, was set a-going at St. James's fort, St. Helena, the 

 pendulum remaining as at the Cape. Here he was at a great loss to get observa- 

 tions tp prove its motion, the heavens being almost perpetually covered with 

 clouds. At length, considering that the place being situated in such a narrow- 

 deep valley, if the times of the descent of the stars, over the western ridge of 

 rocks, (the altitude of whose nearest summit was about 30°, and distant about 

 a quarter of a mile at the observatory) were observed, it would give the time per 

 clock, in a sidereal day; and the chances for such observations would be greater 

 than by any other method, as they might be continued the whole night. Ac- 

 cordingly he began to observe, by fixing the eye to a point : but this was soon 

 improved by the Rev. Mr. Maskelyne, by making the stars descend each night, 

 in the same part of the telescope of the equal altitude instrument: and it was very 

 beautiful to see how instantaneously they disappeared. 



, The difference of the effect of gravity at the two places, on the going of the 

 clock, may be seen by comparing these with the observations made at the 

 Cape. By these it appears that the clock at St. Helena lost from 58" to 59 per 

 day of sidereal time. 



• This degenerated rye is called ergot, from its resemblance to a cock's spur. — Orig. 



iC" Uii:.,*--"^ 



