[ 285 ] 
,P. S. I find fome gentlemen have objected to my‘ 
account kfi: year, of the number of the people 
within the London bills of mortality, that the di- 
minution of the burials may only be owing to an 
extraordinary degree of health, that may have been 
for the lafi; ten years, and not to any decreafe of 
the number of the living. But thefe gentlemen 
have not attended to what is there fhewn in the 
Table, that the births are alfo greatly diminifhed', 
and that from the decreafe of both together, it is 
concluded, that the people are fewer. For if 
greater health was the caufe of the decreafe of 
the burials, the births for that reafon ought rather 
to be more. The truth is, the decreafe of the peo- 
ple diminiflies the pradlice of phyfic, which makes 
fome of that profeflion imagine, that the times are 
more healthy. 
XLVL Attempt to explain two Roman 
Infcriptions^ cut upon two Altars^ which 
were dug up fome time fnce at Bath. By 
John Ward, LL. D, Rhet, Prof Grefh. 
and F. P. R, S, 
Read Dec. it, / jf A H E S E two infcriptions were found 
*755- fame time and place with 
that, which has been already publilhed in the forty 
eighth volume of the Philofophical TranfaSiiom (i). 
The altars, which contain them, are now in the pof- 
( I ) Par, I . Num, li. 
fefiion 
