igO PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1765. 



violent squalls of wind, and a deluge of rain, accompanied with almost uninter- 

 rupted flashes of lightning, many of which ended in a bright purple. About 8, 

 were some distant claps of thunder, at 10, some more. Before 11, the rain 

 ceased, and the sun shone forth. In less than half an hour after, was a sudden 

 shock, preceded by a rumbling noise, and succeeded by a dead calm of at least 

 half an hour. Most persons maintained that it was the severest shock they had 

 felt; but as it lasted no longer than you could clap your hands twice, it did little 

 or no damage. They unanimously declare however, that they never had any 

 thing of the same kind, this being a sudden perpendicular heaving up; whereas 

 all their former shocks were undulatory. 



To know the strength and direction of earthquakes. — Take a vessel, being the 

 portion of a sphere of 3 or 4 feet diameter. Place it on a ground-floor. Dust 

 it all over on the inside with a barber's pufl^, and then pour some water gently 

 into it. On the smallest tremor, the water will wash the flour from the parts of 

 the vesssel on which it rises; and will thus mark the direction and height of the 

 shock. 



VI. Of the White Negro shown before the R. S. By James Parsons, M. D., 



F. R. S. p. 45. 



It appeared that the parents of tliis boy were brought, among many others, 

 above 300 miles from an inland country, to the gold coast in Africa, and put on 

 board a ship bound to Virginia, where they arrived in the year 1755. They be- 

 came the property of Colonel Benj. Chambers, of Cumberland county in Penn- 

 sylvania; and were then employed on an estate of the Colonel's in Virginia; but 

 the Colonel lived with his family in Pennsylvania, where he sold the boy to his 

 then master; of which fact, Dr. P. saw the bill of sale that passed between the 

 Colonel and him. 



The parents were perfectly black, and both very young when landed; and the 

 woman being asked, how far she was gone with child? answered, so as to be 

 understood to mean, that she was with child something more than 6 moons, and 

 that this was her first pregnancy. They also declared, that they had never seen 

 a white person before they came to the shore where Europeans where employed 

 in buying black slaves. 



The owner of this boy was Mr. James Hill Clark, whom Dr. P. informed of 

 what had passed between Dr. Franklin and himself, on this subject; for he paid 

 him a visit, and in the course of conversation he informed him, that while he 

 was in England before, he received a letter from his lady, in which was some of 

 the wool of a white negro child's head, by way of curiosity; and when he men- 

 tioned it to Mr. Clark, he assured him that this very boy was shown in Pennsyl 

 vania as a great rarity: and that, to his knowledge, the wool sent in the letter 



