1/0 PHILOSOVHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I764. 



very near its centre, was in order to keep the object glass at the same height; 

 though this being less than an inch in diameter, and consequently subtending 

 less than ] 3 ' from the top of the hill, there could not have been a second of 

 time difference, whether the stars had been observed to vanish behind the hill, 

 either in the upper or lower part of the field of view. 



Mr. Short also remarks, that no inference can be formed with respect to the 

 different forces of gravity, in different latitudes, from experiments made with 

 clocks, because the same clock, set up on different sides of the same room, will 

 be found to differ considerably from itself. I readily allow, that if clocks are 

 fixed up in a slight manner, or against common wainscots, the experiments made 

 with them cannot be depended on. Yet it does not appear, but that when they 

 are fixed in a firmer manner, they may be depended on near enough to be of con- 

 siderable use in physical inquiries ; which I have reason to think from the many 

 experiments I have tried with the Royal Society's clock, made by Mr. John 

 Shelton, which I propose to give a particular account of at some other oppor- 

 tunity." 



LVIIl. Of an Extraordinary Disease among the Indians, in the Islands of Nan- 

 tucket and Marthas Vineyard, in New England. By Andrew Oliver, Esq., 

 Secretary at Massachusetts s Bay. Dated Boston, Oct. 26, 17 64. p. 386. 

 The uncommon sickness, hereafter described, which prevailed in 1763, at the 

 islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, which lie about 6 or 7 leagues from 

 each other, and the latter about 4 or 5 leagues distant from the Indian plantation 

 at Mashpee on the continent, where it did not make its appearance at all. As 

 Mr. O. had his account from the English minister, and from the physician at 

 Nantucket, and from the society's missionary at the Vineyard, of each of whom 

 he made the most scrupulous inquiry, the truth of it might be depended on. 



About the beginning of August, 1 763, when the sickness began at Nantucket, 

 the whole number of Indians belonging to that island was 358; of these, 258 

 had the distemper between that time and the 20th of February following, 36 

 only of whom recovered; of the 100 who escaped the distemper, 34 were con- 

 versant with the sick, 8 dwelt separate, 18 were at sea, and 40 lived in English 

 families. The physician stated, that the blood and juices appeared to be highly 

 putrid, and that the disease was attended with a violent inflammatory fever, which 

 carried them off in about 5 days. The season was uncommonly moist and cold, 

 and the distemper began originally among them ; but having once made its ap- 

 pearance, it seems to have been propagated by contagion; though some escaped 

 it, who were exposed to the infection. 



The distemper made its appearance at Martha's Vineyard the beginning of 

 December, 1 763. It went through every family into which it came, not one 



