apO PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1772. 



for the end of the worm to go through into the receiver; care must be taken, 

 that no steam comes out there, as well as at the still head. An empty jar will 

 answer the purpose of a receiver very well. Notwithstanding the pipe passes 

 through the tub of cold water, the jar will be very hot; he therefore thought it 

 necessary to keep a person continually wetting it with cold water, which not 

 only kept the jar from breaking, but made the fresh water cold and fit for use 

 immediately after the still was taken off. The foregoing directions strictly ob- 

 served, a quantity of 8 or 10 gallons will be produced every 12 hours. 



Note. Every 5 or 6 hours you must replenish the still with about 5 gallons of 

 water; as he found the first stock consumed about a gallon per hour by boiling. 



XIII. Observatiom on the Milky Appearance of some Spots of fVater in the 



Sea. By the same. p. Q3. 



It has been remarked by several navigators, on their passage from Mocha to 

 Bombay, Surat, &c. that they had discovered in the night spots of water as 

 white as milk, and could never assign any reason for it; and many have been 

 so much alarmed, that they have immediately hove to and sounded; but Capt. 

 N. never heard of any body ever getting ground. In his passage across those 

 seas in the Kelsall, he discovered all of a sudden, about 8 o'clock in the evening, 

 the water all round as white as milk, intermixed with streaks or serpentine lines 

 of black water. He immediately drew a bucket of it, and carried it to the 

 light, where it appeared just as other water; he drew several more, and found it 

 the same: some he kept till the next morning, when he could perceive no dif- 

 ference from that alongside. They had run by the log 50", from the time they 

 first observed it till daylight, and during all that time the water continued white 

 as milk, but at full daylight it was of its usual colour. The next evening about 

 7 o'clock the water appeared again as white as before; he then drew another 

 bucket and carried it to a very dark place, and holding his head close to the 

 bucket, could perceive, with his naked eye, an innumerable quantity of animal- 

 cules floating about alive, which enlightened that small body of water to an 

 amazing degree. Hence he concludes that the whole mass of water must be 

 filled with this small fish spawn or animalcules, and that this is doubtless the 

 reason of the water's appearing so white in the night-time. They ran by the 

 log, from the time they first saw it, till the latter part of the 2d night, the time 

 they lost sight of it, about 170 miles. The latitude about ]5° lO' n. and s. w. 

 dist. from Cape Aden 12° 18' e. 



On the 30th of August 17 69, at 3 o'clock in the morning, he saw a comet 

 8° 20' from Aldebaran s. w. and the tail streaming to the westward. He made 

 the meridian distance from Cape Aden to striking sounding on the Malabar 

 coast, in the lat. of 14° 2' n., 27° 3l' e. 



