VOL. LIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. lOQ 



1761. It began the 10th of March and continued till the 19th of December 

 1762. Since which day there had not, at the date of Dr. M.'s com- 

 munication, been one accident, besides that of the young woman on 

 the 1 1 th of April already mentioned. 

 In 1751, the 20th of October o s. a vast quantity of snow fell, that cutoff 

 the distemper, and there was little plague in 1752. The former year was the 

 most considerable, and more universally mortal at Constantinople than any in 

 the space of 1 5 years. 



XII. Of a Remarkable Tide at Bristol. By the Rev. Josiak Tucker,* D.D. 



Dean of Gloucester, p. 83. 

 On Saturday the 1 1th instant, [Feb. 17^4,] when the tide had hardly begun 

 to flow according to its regular course, it was observed by the water-bailiff of 

 the city, and by several others, both on the back and at the key, to rise very 

 suddenly to almost high-water mark ; and it so continued for near half an hour; 

 it then sunk, almost instantaneously, 3 feet perpendicular : after that it began 

 to flow in again, and kept flowing on till 1 o'clock, and rose to the height it was 

 expected to do. At Rownham Passage, a mile below the city, the ferry-men 

 observed the tide to ebb almost instantaneously, and to sink at least 4 feet per- 

 pendicular. It then flowed in again, as it should have regularly done. At 

 King Road, which is about 3 miles below the city, the officers observed the 

 king's boat to float suddenly, which they attributed to a great fresh coming. 

 But they found afterwards the boat presently aground. He could get no intel- 

 ligence of any thing observable that happened in the river Severn, excepting 

 that at Gloucester, and at Worcester, the inundation sunk very fast on that 

 day. But most undoubtedly the strong rapid tide of the Severn must have been 

 affected in a very remarkable manner, had there been any curious persons to 

 take notice of it. 



XIII. A letter containing some Experivients in Electricity, to Mr, Benjamin 

 fVilsonj F. R. S. from Mr. Torbern Bergman, of Upsal, in Sweden, p. 84. 

 This letter consists chiefly of notices and inquiries concerning positive and 



* This celebrated divine was born at Langhorn, in Caermarthenshire, in .711; and died in 

 1799 ; consequently at h8 years of age. He was of St. John's College, Oxford, wliere he took his 

 degree of D.D. in 1 759. From the University he removed to Bristol, where he became rector of St. 

 Stephen's, and had a stall in the Cathedral. In 1758 he was preferred to the deanery of Gloucester. 

 He distinguished himself by his theological and political tracts, (among which last those in favour 

 of the independence of the American colonies show that Dr. T. possessed great strength of judg- 

 ment, with a mind in the highest degree liberal and enlightened,) and by his writings on commercial 

 subjects; but it is his Treatise on Civil Government, in opposition to Locke, which is considered as 

 his principal work. 



