VOL. LXXXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 245 



ships Stood off and on ; but how much farther to the east, and a few ther 

 points, they might extend, these persons cannot pretend to say, such points 

 being out of their course for the ports they were destined to. That most of the 

 fish were dead, though some were ahve, as appeared by a slight motion of the 

 tail, but in a very feeble state, and unable to sink in the water. 



In the above particulars Messrs. Stoker and Armstrong perfectly agree, as to 

 the truth of the fact. The latter, through cautious timidity, prevented his 

 crew from taking up any of the fish ; but the former took on board many, both 

 dead and in a dying state, of which he first ate, and then suffered his men to do 

 the same : and at Archangel gave the remainder to the custom-house officers, 

 without any person receiving the least injury. Mr. Stoker having, previous to 

 eating the fish, tried the usual experiment at sea, of putting silver into the fresh 

 water wherein the fish were boiled, the silver was not at all discoloured. 



Talking with Mr. Stoker, in his parlour, I asked him how many fish he could 

 take up in that or any other given space. He answered, that in various places 

 the fish lay so thick, that in the compass of 12 or 15 yards a boat load, from 3 

 to 5 tons, might have been taken up : that he measured several of the haddocks, 

 from 2 to 2 feet 8 inches in length, and 6 or 7 inches deep ; about twice the 

 size of haddocks on our coasts. That he opened all the haddocks he took on 

 board, and in every one of them, both dead and expiring, he saw the sound 

 much inflated or blown up, to which he ascribes the great destruction, but with- 

 out being able to give any further satisfactory reason. 



Mr. Stoker went from Archangel to Onega ; and when Mr. Armstrong, at the 

 former place, related the story to the merchants and inhabitants at the Exchange, 

 they replied, that they had known and heard of similar accidents ; and that the 

 great quantity of thunder and lightning, usual near the Cape, was the reason. 



In my excursion along the coast of Northumberland, I found a fisherman 

 careening his boat, who told me that, prior to the late failure, he had frequently, 

 with the assistance of 2 men, taken and sent to Newcastle, in one day, 2 boat 

 loads of haddocks, containing in each from 80 to 100 score ; but in the last 

 season he had not, in the whole, taken more than 40 or 50 haddocks. He could 

 give no reason for the failure : but another man attributed the scarcity to the 

 want of hard gales of wind, for some years, to blow the fish off the Dogger 

 Bank to these coasts. 



XIX. On the Cause of the yidditional Weight which Metals acquire by being 

 Calcined. By G. Furdyce, M. D., F. R. S. p. 374. 



It has been a great desideratum among chemists, to determine the cause of 

 the additional weight which metals acquire when they are calcined. To investi- 

 gate this subject, I had begun, says Dr. F., the following experiment many 



