CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 281 



and corroborating than the same doth send forth in ebbs. 

 But I stop a rambhng pen, and ever rest, &c. 



P.S. The mii'aculous ciu-e upon the French maid was 

 in the midst of a tiding senary ;* the power that effected 

 it made use of a heightened imagination, and a vigorous 

 season. 



Mr. Lhwyd to Mr. E,ay.-|- 



Honoured Sir, — Your last was of January 22, 

 since which time I have not been able (though I have 

 endeavoured it very much, by sending queries to the 

 country) to give you any farther and more accurate 

 account of that prodigious fire I then alarmed you with. 

 I understand only, in general, that it lasted at least 

 three or four months ; nay, some add that it still con- 

 tinues, though not in the same place, but appears up 

 farther in the country, and that it has been also commonly 

 seen on the sea coast of Caernarvonshire. The reason 

 that induced me, at the beginning, to think of the locusts, 

 was only a random guess, that so strange and unheard 

 of effects must proceed from some cause no less unusual ; 

 for if ever our sea or land had been capable of their own 

 nature to produce such a meteor, I should expect to find 

 it recorded, that at one time or other, in the revolutions 

 of some centuries, such a thing had happened. 



You have probably seen, ere this, the ' Phil. Trans.' 

 of February, where there is all the account I could give 

 of the locusts, but no figure of the animal, though I 

 sent it up, and Mr. Waller promised to have it engraven. 

 I have been informed since that many of them have been 



* Of these senaries see Mr. Pascliall's opinion in Philos. Transact. 

 No. 202.— W. D[erham]. 



t There are divers letters of Mr. Lhwyd to Mr. Ilaj', relating to this 

 unusual fire here mentioned, which I omit publishing, by reason there is an 

 account of Mr. Lhwyd's and Mr. Jones's in ' Phil. Transact.' Nos. 208, 213 ; 

 but tJiis letter having some of Mr. Lhwyd's thoughts about it not there 

 published, I thought it convenient to entertain the reader with it. 



W. D[ekham] 



