VOL. LV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS'.' 23$ 



came from Europe, into the New England colonies, from their first settlement, 

 to this present day. 



Various sea-port towns, as well as some inland places, have been visited with 

 the small-pox, since the first settlement of the New England colonies, by 

 which many have died; perhaps, taken collectively, not more than 1 in 4 have 

 recovered; partly owing to removing the sick, in order to prevent communi- 

 cating the infection; and partly to the want of skilful physicians, and faithful 

 experienced nurses to attend the sick, which often obliged to make use of some 

 of the most abandoned wretches, for want of suitable persons who had had the 

 small-pox, to perform that service. It is much regretted by many, that the 

 practice of inoculation may not be tolerated, in the New England colonies, and 

 regulated by laws, well adapted to prevent the spreading the contagion, among 

 such as do not chuse, and those whose circumstances will not permit them, to 

 comply with the expence attending it. 



The increase of mankind has been more impeded by the small-pox, than is 

 usually imagined; it is not the loss of one in 6 or 8, who die with the disease, 

 that is chiefly to be attended to, but the accumulated loss of all the posterity, 

 which might have descended from them, multiplied through all succeeding 

 generations. Therefore perhaps it might be thought wisdom to address the 

 throne for liberty to erect one hospital in each of the New England colonies for 

 that purpose; that those, at least, who are engaged in trade and navigation, 

 might have the benefit of inoculation, and be exempt from the hazard of the 

 disease, while necessarily engaged in business abroad, and not endanger their 

 friends on their return home. 



XXP^. A Balance of a New Constniction, supposed to be of Use in the Woollen 

 Manufacture. By W. Ludlam, B. D. p. 205. 



It is of consequence in some branches of the woollen manufacture, that the 

 thread of which any piece is woven should be all of the same fineness. After 

 it is spun, it is made into skains of the same length, and these are sorted ac- 

 cording to the fineness of the spinning. The manufacturers usually distinguish 

 and denominate the fineness, by the number of skains which go to the pound; 

 the coarsest being about 1 2 to the pound, and the finest near 6o. There is no 

 other method of sorting in use, except by the eye; but it requires great nicety 

 to distinguish the size of threads so small, and long experience to know by the 

 look only, how many skains of any particular sort will make a pound. A me- 

 thod of weighing them readily would save much time: the machine here 

 delineated is for that purpose. It resembles the beam of a common pair of 

 scales, fig. 10, pi. 5. At one end of it is a fixed weight, which Mr. L. calls 

 the counterpoise, at the other a hook: in sorting, the skain to be examined is 



VOL. XII. H H 



