36 Mr. king’s Account of a 
am well aware of this danger, yet I venture to lay before 
you thefe few obfervations ; and if you judge them at all 
worthy of attention, I would wifh to communicate them, 
through your hands,. to the Royal Society, for they are. 
not made merely in confequence. of a flight and hafty 
furvey of this one fpecimen, but are in truth conclufions 
that ! have been led to form incidentally in the courfe of 
a very long inquiry, which I have been for fome years 
purfuing oir another oecafion ; the refalt whereof I fhall 
perhaps, if I live, hereafter communicate to the Society 
in a more full and explicit manner than the coropafs'of 
a paper of this kind will permit.. 
The account of this fpecimen, with which you fa- 
voured me,, is as follows. In the year 1745, the Fox. 
man of war was unfortunately ftranded on the coaft of. 
EaftLothian in Scotland,. and there went to pieces; and 
the wreck remained about three and thirty years under 
water; but this laft year a violent ftorm from the Norths 
eaft laid a part of it bare, and feveral mafles, confifting of 
iron, ropes, and balls, were found on the fands near the. 
place, covered oven with a very hard ochry fubftance, of 
the colour of iron, which adhered thereto fo ftrongly,, 
that it required great force to detach it from the frag- 
ments of the wreck.. And, upon examination, this fub- 
ftance 
