374 MifceUqneous O b s e r v at i o n s on 



Jeaft, not only flefhy, uncorrupted, and fweet, but 

 alio fheathed, and done all over with vitriol, in 

 manner as if candied. 



XVIII. But to fee how corrofive things, as vi- 

 triol, which deftroy not, nay, rather preferve dead 

 bodies, are more active and operative on living 

 ones, we need only recoiled: what is practiced by 

 the Eafterns, who (have themfelves with a mixture, 

 confiding of crude earth and orpiment* yet, if care 

 be not had, come to have their flefh perforated, or 

 their fkin become like Cordouan leather \*. 



XIX. To try the effects of vitriol on vegetables, 

 I difiblved vitriol in water, wherein I foaked ten 

 grains of barly for twenty four hours, then letting 

 them dry, they became quite black. Of thefe no 

 more than two came up, with very weakly (talks, 

 and fmall ears. Whether this was owing to the vi- 

 triol, or the great degree of drought, having planted 

 them a little too late, I know not ; yet vitriol ap- 

 pears to have but little fruitfulnefs in it, efpecially 

 from the vitriol- earth at Rogau in Silefia, which 

 being at firft, employed as a manure, rendered the 

 fields barren *. 



XX. Dr. Gould, of Oxford, has obferved, that 

 oil of vitriol does, by means of the air, encreafe in 

 weight, having, for that purpofe, expofed a highly 

 dephlegmated oil in an open wide glafs, and 

 weighed it accurately every day. In the fpace of 

 fifty feven days, three drachms of oil of vitriol 

 came to nine drachms, thirty grains. The firft day 

 the oil increafed one drachm and eight grains, after- 

 wards, from day to day, ftill lefs, nay, the laft day, 

 fcarce half a grain. This fucceeds in moid foggy 

 weather better than in dry, alfo in a wide than 

 narrow vefTel -f* . XXI. To 



*^* Tavemier's voyages, p. 166. 



* Brefsl. natur-und. niedicin-gefchichte im jahr, 1718. Jul. 

 p. 1402. f Phil. Tranf. S* 156. p. 496. 



