VOL. LVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3Q\ 



constant circular motion round the bag, or at least by a deception of sight they 

 appear to be so. 3. They swim constantly on their backs, keeping themselves 

 suspended by the vibrations of their numerous fins, and moving forwards, by 

 giving a sudden spring with their tails; which latter circumstance is common to 

 almost all aquatic insects. 



In the ditch whence these were taken, there was a vast multitude of the same 

 kind, though they have not been found in any other place that he knows of. 

 From their being prolific in this state, he suspects it to be their only one, and 

 that they are merely aquatic, and never turn to flies, as many insects found in 

 water do : but then it seems very unaccountable how they came to be in such 

 abundance in this ditch, and no where else, at least so as to be observed. 



f^III. jin Account of the very Tall Men, seen near the Straits of Magellan, 

 1764, by the Equipage of the Dolphin Man of War, under Commodore 

 Byron. In a Letter from Mr. Charles Clarke of that Ship. p. 75- 



Mr. Clarke describes these Patagonians as of a remarkably tall stature, and 

 proportionally stout ; the men from 8, to more than 9 feet high ; and the women 

 from 74- to 8 feet. But the description of these people may be read with more 

 advantage in the account of Commodore Byron's voyage, afterwards published by 

 authority. 



/X. Account of a New-invented Instrument for Fractured Legs. By Mr. Wm, 

 Sharpe, Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, p. 80. 



This account of an instrument for fractured legs, may be consulted in Mr. 

 Sharpe's chirurgical works. 



X. Of a Locked Jaw, and Paralysis, cured by Electricity. By Dr. Edward 



Spry, of Totness. p. 88. 



Catharine Smellidge, ofDitford, a girl aged 18, of a strong healthy constitu- 

 tion, at the accidental death of a friend, took a great fright, and the next day 

 (Easter-day, 1765) at his funeral, fell ill of very severe convulsive fits, which 

 lasted, with slight intermissions, upwards of a month. From the first attack she 

 never spoke, though otherwise sensible; soon after, her jaws became quite fixed, 

 so that she was obliged to be fed with thin panada, and the like, strained be- 

 tween her teeth, being not able to have them opened but a very little way, even 

 by a wedge made for that purpose. She became likewise paralytic from her hip 

 downward, on the right side. 



January 10, 1766, she consulted Dr. S., when he found her incapable of sup- 

 porting herself without assistance, her leg and thigh of the right side very torpid 

 with a loss of motion, and much more flaccid than the other, though not ema- 



