many of which are extremely beautiful; also a great number of little idols, tripods, lachrymatories, and many vases curiously wrought. Among these, is a whole loaf of bread burnt to a coal; which they will not suffer any one to touch. It is covered with a glass bell, through which are perceived letters on the loaf, which possibly were the baker's mark.

Of the pictures, some were taken out of a temple near the theatre, others from the houses. They have all preserved their colours to admiration, which are very lively. They are painted in fresco, and were sawed out of the walls, with much trouble and care; and are now fixed with binding mortar, or cement, in shallow wooden cases to prevent their breaking, and varnished over to preserve their colours. You must think that these pictures are not alike valuable, otherwise than from their antiquity; some doubtless have been done by good hands, others by bad, as one sees by the works of those nowa-days.

There are many baskets and cases full of different things, all jumbled together; such as kitchen utensils, locks, bolts, rings, hinges, and all of brass. Things that were of iron, were totally eaten up with rust. When the workmen came to any thing of that sort, it mouldered to dust as soon as they touched it; occasioned, doubtless, by the dampness of the earth, and the many ages during which it lay buried. There were found many vases, and crystal bottles full of water; but that might penetrate through the earth and fall into them, if not close stopped: also a sort of standish or inkhorn, in which were found many stylets or pens, with which they wrote in those days. When it was first taken out, they say, the ink had not only its natural colour, but that it was yet capable of tinging it is very dry now. There were eggs found quite whole, but empty; also nuts and almonds; grain of several sorts, beans and peas, burnt quite black. Many other sorts of fruit were found burnt quite to a coal, but whole.

Mr. F. declares that he cannot be of the opinion of some, who assert that this city was suddenly swallowed up, which implies that the earth must have opened, and formed a pit to receive it. His opinion is, that it was overwhelmed with the matter issuing from the mountain, at the time of the irruption; because most things were found upright, chiefly the buildings.

The appearance of this city would greatly disappoint such as should have raised their expectation to see in it spacious streets and fronts of houses; for they would find nothing but long narrow passages, just high enough to walk upright in, with a basket on the head; and wide enough for the work

There

men to pass each other, with the dirt they dig out. is a vast number of these passages, cut one out of another; so that one might perhaps walk the space of two miles, by going up every turning.

A skeleton was found in a doorway, in a running attitude; with one arm extended, which appeared to have had a bag of money in the hand of it, for the lava had taken so exact an impression of the man, that there was a hole under the hand of the extended arm; which hole was apparently the impression of the bag, and several pieces of silver coin were found in it. This man, therefore, must have had notice enough of the danger, to endeavour to secure his treasure; though he must have been encompassed with liquid fire, in attempting it.

Observations on the Sex of Flowers. By W.WATSON, F.R.S.

THE sex of plants is very well confirmed by an experiment which has been made on the palma major foliis flabelliformibus. There is a great tree of this kind in the garden of the Royal Academy at Berlin. It has flowered and born fruit these 30 years; but the fruit never ripened, and when planted, it did not vegetate. The palm-tree is a planta dioecia; that is, one of those in which the male and female parts of generation are on different plants. We having, therefore, no male plant, the flowers of our female were never impregnated by the farina of the male. There is a male plant of this kind in a garden at Leipsic, 20 German miles from Berlin. We procured from thence, in April, 1749, a branch of male flowers, and suspended it over our female ones, and our experiment succeeded so well, that our palmtree produced more than 100 perfectly ripe fruit; from which we have already 11 young trees. This experiment was repeated last year, and our palm-tree bore above 2000 ripe fruit.

The impregnation of the female palm-tree by the male has been known in the most ancient times. Herodotus, when speaking of the palm-tree, says, "that the Greeks call some of these trees male, the fruit of which they bind to the other kind, which bears dates; that the small flies, with which the male abounds, may assist in ripening the fruit; for," says this author, "the male palm-tree produces in its fruit small flies, just as the fig-tree does."

Theophrastus, in his account of the palm-tree, gives the very process mentioned by our correspondent. "They bring together," says he, "the males and the females, which causes the fruit to continue and ripen on the trees. Some, from the

similitude of this to what happens in fig-trees, call it caprification; and it is performed in the following manner: while the male' plant is in flower, they cut off a branch of these flowers, and scatter the dust and down in it on the flowers of the female plant. By these means the female does not cast her fruit, but preserves them to maturity." Pliny mentions the like process. Among more modern authors, Prosper Alpinus relates the manner of the impregnation of the female palm-tree by the male, for the purposes before mentioned.

Some of the more skilful modern gardeners put in practice, with regard to melons and cucumbers, the very method mentioned by Theophrastus 2000 years ago, in regard to the palm-tree. As these plants, early in the season, are in this climate confined to frames and glasses, the air, in which they grow, is more stagnant than the open air, by which the distribution of the farina fœcundans, so necessary towards the production of the fruit for the propagation of the species, is much hindered; to obviate which, they collect the male flowers when fully blown, and presenting them to the female ones, by a stroke of the finger they scatter the farina fœcundans in them, which prevents the falling of the fruit immaturely.

Besides the vegetables before mentioned, which bear male and female flowers on the same root, there are others, which produce these organs on different roots: in the number of these are the palm-tree (the more particular subject of this paper), hops, the willow-tree, mistletoe, spinach, hemp, poplar, French and dog's mercury, the yew-tree, juniper, and several others. Among these, the valisneria of Linnéus, as to the manner in which its male flower impregnates the female, is one of the most singular prodigies in nature.

The foundation of the discovery of the real sex of plants, which is of no less importance in natural history than that of the circulation of the blood in the animal economy, was laid by the members of the Royal Society; though much of the honour due to them is attributed by foreigners to the late ingenious Mons. Vaillant of Paris; and this may have arisen from our language not being generally understood on the Continent.

Concerning Mr. Bright, the Fat Man at Malden, in Essex. By T. COLE, M.D.—[1751.]

MR. EDWARD BRIGHT, grocer, of Malden, in Essex, died there the 10th of November, 1750, in the 30th year of his age. He was a man so extremely fat, and of such an uncommon bulk and weight, that there are very few, if any, such in

books.

stances to be found in any country, or on record in any He was descended from families greatly inclined to corpulency, both on his father's and his mother's side. He was always fat from a child, yet strong and active, and used much exercise, not only when a boy, but till within the last two or three years of his life, when he became too unwieldy. He could walk nimbly, having great strength of muscles, and could not only ride on horseback, but would sometimes gallop after he became between 30 and 40 stone weight. He used to go to London about his business, till the journey (40 miles) became too great a fatigue to him; so that he left it off some years before he died. In the last year or two he could walk but a little way, being soon tired, and out of breath. At 12 years old he weighed 144 pounds; and before he was 20 he weighed 24 stone or 336 pounds. The last time he was weighed, about 13 months before he died, his weight, exclusive of his clothes, was 41 stone and ten pounds, or 584 pounds. What it exactly was at the time of his death cannot be told; but as it was manifestly increased since the last weighing, if we take the same proportion by which it had increased for many years on an average; viz. about two stone a year, and only allow four pounds addition for the last year, on account of his moving about but little, while he continued to eat and drink as before, this will bring him to 44 stone, or 616 pounds.

As to his measure, he was five feet nine inches and a half high. His body round the chest just under the arms measured five feet six inches, and round the belly six feet 11 inches. His arm in the middle of it was two feet two inches about, and his leg two feet eight inches. When a youth he used to eat somewhat remarkably; but toward the end of his life, though he continued to eat heartily, and with a good relish, yet he did not eat more in quantity than many other men of good appetite. Though he did not take any liquor to an intoxicating degree, yet, perhaps, on the whole, he drank more than might have been advisable to a man of his very corpulent disposition. When he was a very young man, he was fond of ale and old strong beer; but afterwards his chief liquor was small beer, of which he commonly drank about a gallon in a day. In other liquors he was extremely moderate, when by himself, sometimes drinking half a pint of wine after dinner, or a little punch, and seldom exceeding his quantity; but when he was in company, he did not confine himself to so small an allowance.

He enjoyed for the most part as good health as any man, except that in the last three years, he was two or three times

seized with an inflammation in his leg, attended with a little fever; and every time with such a tendency to mortification, as to make it necessary to scarify the part. But by the help of scarifications and fomentations, bleeding largely once or twice in the arm, and purging, he was always soon relieved.

He married when 22 or 23 years old, and lived a little more than seven years in that state; in which time he had five children born.

His last illness, which continued about fourteen days, was a miliary fever. It began with pretty strong inflammatory symptoms, a very troublesome cough, great difficulty of breathing, &c. and the eruption was extremely violent. His body began to putrefy very soon after he was dead; so that, notwithstanding the weather was cool, it became very offensive the next day, before a coffin could be made. The coffin was three feet six inches broad at the shoulders, two feet three inches and a half at the head, 22 inches at the feet, and three feet one inch and a half deep.

On the Phenomena of Electricity in Vacuo. By Mr. WILLIAM WATSON.[1751.]

FROM a comparison of experiments in electricity made in vacuo, with those already made in open air, it appears, that on the removal of the air the electricity pervades the vacuum to a considerable distance, and manifests its effects on any non-electric substances, which terminate that vacuum; and that by these means, originally-electric bodies, even in their most perfect state, put on the appearance of non-electrics, by becoming themselves the conductors of electricity.

The experiments alluded to in this paper must be considered to have been made in a vacuum by Mr. Smeaton's air-pump, that rarefies 1000 times.

It appeared from them, that the electricity, meeting with scarcely any resistance, passed from the top to the bottom, and electrized the air-pump; and it was a most delightful spectacle, when the room was darkened, to see the electricity in its passage; to be able to observe, not, as in the open air, its brushes or pencils of rays an inch or two in length, but here the coruscations were of the whole length of the tube between the plates, viz. 32 inches, and of a bright silver hue. These did not immediately diverge as in the open air, but frequently, from a base apparently flat, divided themselves into less and less ramifications, and resembled very much the most lively coruscations of the aurora borealis.