6q2 philosophical transactions. [anno 1 780. 



that of the Sea-shore, and that of Places far removed from the Sea. In a 



Letter from John Ingenhousz, M. D., F. R. S., to Sir John Pringle, Bart., 



F. R.S. Dated Paris, January 21, 1780. p. 354. 



Sir, — As yon had recoinmended to me the examination of the air at sea by 

 the nitrous test, I followed your advice in my return to tlie Continent in the 

 beginning of November last; and I embraced that opportunity with the more 

 eagerness, as I knew that you had given credit to the account of several con- 

 sumptive people having recovered their health by going on sea voyages, after the 

 common means for curing that distemper had failed. I was in hopes also to find 

 in this inquiry, a confirmation of what you conjectured in your anniversary dis- 

 course in the year 1773, viz. that great bodies of water, such as seas and lakes, 

 are conducive to the health of animals, by purifying and cleansing the air con- 

 taminated by their breathing in it: so tliat the salutary gales, by which this 

 infected air is conveyed to the waters, and by them returned again to the land, 

 though they rise now and then to storms and hurricanes, must nevertheless 

 induce us to trace and to revere in them the ways of a beneficent Being, who, 

 not fortuitously, but with design, not in wrath, but in mercy, thus shakes the 

 waters and the air together, to bury in the deep those pestilential efliiuvia which 

 the vegetables on the face of the earth are insufficient to consume. I was not 

 without hope, that such experiments might tend to throw new light on the cause 

 of that almost universal eft'ect of the sea air, to wit, its increasing the powers of 

 life, and giving a keener appetite by hastening the digestion of food. 



I shall now give you an account of the experiments I made in consequence of 

 your suggestion, in the same order as they were made; and beg jou to present 

 them to the r. s., if you think them worthy the attention of that learned body. I 

 must first however premise, that as I wrote this paper in noisy inns, on ship- 

 board, and places little adapted to philosophical application, I hope you will make 

 some allowance for the inaccuracies which you may find in it. I began my 

 experiments at Gravesend, where I was obliged to wait 1 days for a favourable 

 wind. I found the air of that place, on November 1, of a tolerable good 

 quality, as one measure of it with one of nitrous air occupied, in several trials, 

 about 104, or one measure and -y-i^ of a measure; so that I took it to be nearly 

 of the same quality as the air of London. 



The ship in which I went from London to Ostend happened to be becalmed 

 about 2 or 3 miles from shore, in the mouth of the Thames, between Siieerness 

 and Margate. The weather was very agreeable, warm, and the sun shone very 

 bright, on the 3d of November. I was provided with a travelling apparatus, 

 made on purpose by Mr. Martin, the whole of whicli was packed up in a box 

 about 10 inches long, 5 broad, and '6\ high. The glass tube or great measure, 

 which was l6 inches long, and divided in 1 separate pieces, lay in a small com- 



