VOL. LXI.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IGQ 



clear liquor, which did not effervesce any more with the alkali. The Qth, I 

 milled 6 drams of the putrid liquamen, with about double of this liquor, and put 

 in besides 4 solid pieces of flesh, which had lain 3 days in the liquamen : these 

 pieces had a prodigious stench, and so rotten, that with the least force they were 

 torn to pieces. There appeared no signs of intestine motion : the 10th, the 

 putrid smell was very much abated: the 11th, it was changed, and there re- 

 mained only a smell much like that of sound flesh : the pieces were without any 

 smell, and had acquired again some degree of firmness. In this condition they 

 remained for a week, and I did not observe them any longer. 



This experiment proves, I believe, that acids, though changed in the alimen- 

 tary canal so far, as not to effervesce with alkalies, may notwithstanding check 

 putrefaction ; and that therefore their use is of great consequence, and ought not to 

 be omitted in putrid diseases. Though Dr. M'Bride believes that these diseases 

 may be cured with fermentable substances only; I must own that I do not agree 

 with him, and am not quite convinced of his opinion, that putrefaction depends 

 only on the loss of fixed air. I rather believe this an effect, than the cause, of 

 putrefaction ; but I shall refer this subject to another occasion. 



XL. Observations on Five j4ncient Persian Coins, struck in Palestine, or Phoe- 

 nicia, before the Dissolution of the Persian Empire. By the Rev. J. Swinton, 

 B.D., F.R.S. p. 345. 



These coins, as well as several others similar to them, were undoubtedly 

 struck, in some of the cities of Syria, Palestine, or Phcenicia, before the reduc- 

 tion of those provinces, and the conquest of the Persian empire, by Alexander 

 the Great. 



1 . The first of these 5 medals was brought to England, out of the East, by the 

 Kev. Tho. Crofts, chaplain to the British factory at Aleppo. On one side is 

 Atergatis, Adergatis, or Derceto, taken by several learned men, for the Dagon 

 of Scripture, nearly as we find that pagan divinity described by Diodorus Siculus, 

 and Lucian, with a pigeon before her, and a fish in her right hand. On the 

 other, we perceive a galley, or small vessel, on the sea, with rowers in it ; under 

 which there appears a sea-horse, or rather a sea-monster, of a very particular 

 form. Near the face of Adergatis, the two Phoenician letters, answering to ma, 

 present themselves. The piece is in good conservation, having suffered very 

 little from the injuries of time. 



That this silver medal must have been anterior to the dissolution of the Per- 

 sian empire, we may fairly collect from the reverse ; which agrees in every par- 

 ticular, but the sea-horse, with the reverse of a Daric, that undoubtedly preceded 

 the above-mentioned event, and exhibits the very same Phoenician letters with 

 which it is adorned. * 



VOL. XIII. Z 



