390 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



exhausted a cask of all its liquor Avitliout injuring the cask, and 

 leaving no vestige behind it. It melted copiDer and gold and sil- 

 ver in bags without burning the bags. It struck Marcia, a Ro- 

 man lady pregnant, killed the child without hurting her. The 

 Decurion Marcus Hennerius of Pompeii, was struck by lightning 

 in a clear day. 



The Tuscans had nine Divinities w^ho used lightning, and there 

 were eleven sorts of lightning, of which Jupiter used only three. 



The Tuscan annals show us that by means of certain sacrifices 

 and formula, lightning could be drawn from the heavens. That 

 when a monster called "Volta" ravaged Etruria, the king, Por- 

 senna, used the process and killed the monster by lightning. 

 Lucius Pisa, a writer of great credit, says in his first book, that 

 before Porsenna's time, the Roman king, Numa Pompilius, had 

 often used lightning, and that by a mistake in the process 

 Tullus Hostilius, was killed by the lightning which he drew 

 from the heavens. [This reminds us of the case of Prof. Rich- 

 man, at St. Petersburg!!, in 1753, killed on the 6th of August, by 

 lightning drawn by himself from the clouds. H. Meigs.J 



Man is the only being which can be struck by lightning and 

 frequently survive; all other creatures when struck are ahvays 

 killed, notwithstanding many of the beasts are constructed much 

 like him and much more robust. The animals w^hen struck, 

 always fall down on the side opposite to the stroke. When a 

 man is struck standing up, and is not killed, he is always found 

 sitting ! If he is struck while awake, he is found with his eyes 

 closed — if struck while asleep, his eyes are always found open! 

 The place of his body where he was struck is always found to be 

 . colder than the rest of his body. 



Lightning never penetrates the earth deeper than five feet. 

 Fish are never struck by it. The eagle has never been struck by 

 it, while other birds have. He is therefore called the thunder 

 hearer I 



It was not until 1749, that the phenomena of electricity were 

 by Franklin, began to be rationally understood. 



VINEGAR. 



A valuable essay on this subject by Mons. Bernon. 



The perpetual secretary, Mons. Liais, has caused an astrono- 

 mical instrument to be constructed by means of which angles are 

 measured with accura,cy as great as possible, and without any 

 error in the graduation of circles. 



