VOL. LVI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 28Q 



of; which apparatus Mr. Baker was not at the expence of procuring, as it would 

 answer no other purpose: but the method he contrived, instead thereof, he 

 imagines to be equally effectual. In truth, Mr. Baker has employed much time 

 and his best endeavours in the examination of these glasses, as they were 

 supposed capable of such wonderful discoveries: and that as well by candle-light, 

 as (by what is recommended) the strongest day-light: and yet he must declare, 

 with some concern, that through the smallest globule, viz, of one half of a Paris 

 point in diameter, he has not been able to distinguish any thing; and even 

 through that which magnifies the least, he could never view any object with 

 satisfaction; though he applied the most minute, and consequently the properest 

 objects for these glasses, viz. the globules of the blood, the farina of vegetables, 

 the seeds of mushrooms, the feathers of butterflies, pepper-water, &c. He 

 hopes his eyes are not injured by these examinations, as they have been much 

 used to microscopes; but he believes there are very few who would not have been 

 nearly blinded by them. On the whole, — Mr. Baker thinks the r. s. much 

 obliged to the Father di Torre for these specimens of his great dexterity, inge- 

 nuity, and patience, in forming and setting glass spheres thus extremely minute; 

 but he considers them as matters of curiosity rather than of real use. 



XII. On the Transit of Femis over the Sun, June 6, 1761. By Frederick 



Mallet, Astron. Royal, Upsal. From the Latin, p. 72. 

 From these observations very few data are obtained. It hence appears that 

 the first exterior contact was doubtful; but that the interior contact was at 

 3h 38™ 2'; the interior egress at Q*" 28"" O*; and exterior egress, or last contact, 

 at 9'' 46™ 2Q». 



XIII. A Hepatitis, with Unfavourable Symptoms, treated by Robert Smith, 



Surgeon at Edinburgh, now at Leicester, p. 92. 

 In this patient, (Mrs. Morton, aged 26,) after an attack of hepatitis, in the 

 summer of 1750, there arose a tumor on the anterior part of the liver, of an ob- 

 long figure, and which extended its longest diameter across the epigastrium about 

 7 inches. The patient, greatly debilitated by the large evacuations and fever, 

 became so low and dispirited, that she had given over all thoughts of recovery. 

 To Dr. J. Dundas, an eminent physician, who had occasionally attended, Mr. S. 

 proposed making an incision into the tumor; though the event, under the 

 present circumstances, had but an indifferent aspect. This proposal was, 

 however, approved of by the doctor, the patient, and her relations, under the 

 following terms, viz. to have the opinion of the principal surgeon or surgeons in 

 that city on the expediency of the operation, in order that, should the experiment 

 prove unsuccessful, there might be no blame imputed afterwards. 



VOL. XII. P P 



