. [ 241 ] 
found in the coal-mines, and in various other parts 
For, fubtile mephitic fpirits have frequently 
been obferved to expire from the earth in parts ad- 
jacent to many of the acidulce, and to produce the 
fame effedls upon animals and other bodies as the 
ftith or choak-damps, or as the fpirits of the Grof/o 
di Cani in Italy, of which, and others of the like na- 
ture, Leonardo di Capoa hath largely treated. Thus 
the learned Dr. John Philip Siep hath communicated 
to the Royal Society (6) a very accurate account of 
a grotto of this kind, which he difcovered near the 
fountains of Pyrmont. Another grotto of the fame 
fort Pechlinus takes notice of, nigh the acidulje at 
Swalb in Germany (7). And the learned Hoffman 
was informed by a peribn of credit, that a fountain 
in the Black Foreff, in the dutchy of Wurtemburgh,. 
which had flowed a long time, was fuddenly deprived 
of all its taffe and virtue, by reafon that in the neigh- 
bouring parts a mineral and fulphureous vapour im- 
petuoufly burff out of a chafm which was made in 
the rock j but this chafm being clofely ffopt up, the 
fountain again obtained its former virtues, (8). 
And that the acidulae are really impregnated with 
a mephitic exhalation refembling the choak-damp, 
fome of thefe fprings (as thofe at Pyrmont) do 
plainly difcover by their deadly effeds upon ducks 
fwimming upon their furface (qL 
(6) Philofoph., Tranfaaions, N° 448. pag. 266. 
(7) Pechlinus, lib. iii. Obf. 44. 
(8) Hoffinan, De Pfincipiis & Virtutib. prascipuor. Germaniot 
Medicator. Fontium, § xxxv. 
(9) Dr. Philippus Sicp. Ibid. 
Yol. LV. I; i 
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