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AN POROLA DSi? TaN at
e ge 2 OF i
ge SIVELY SEE
THE TRANSACTIONS OF mm ROYAL S okay OF LONDON
BY THEMREY, ¢,.¢: CLARKE. 2
Author af’
lhe Wonders of the World and of the leaens’
THE
Th HAVERS oo
_ LONDON
W. TWEEDIE, 337, STRAND
.
Account of the Burning Concave G'luss, made, at Lyons, by
M, Vitrerr nt
*
Irs figure is roundy being rather above thirty ipches in
diameter. On one side it has a circular frame of steel, that it
may keep its just size. It is easy. ta remove it from place to
place, though it weigh above a hundred weight, and is easily °
pat in all sorts of positions, The focus is distant from the
centre of the glass abdut thred feet, and is about Half an inch
in diameter. One may pags one’s hand through it, if it be
done nimbly ; but if it remain there for one second only,
there is danger of receiving much hurt. -
Green wood takes fire in it jn an instgnt, as do also many.
other bouies. . ;
A small piece of pot-iron was melted, and ready to
drop down, in - - - - 40 See.
A piece of silver was pierced in -- - 2 oh
A thick nail was melted in : - - - 30
The end of a sword-blade was burnt in” - - 43
A brass counter was pierced in - - - 6
A piece of red copper was melted, ready to drop, oy
down, in - - ‘« - - 42
“A piece of quarry-stone was vitrified in - 2 AS
Watch spring steel melted in ot - 9
A mineral stone was calcined and. vitrified in - 4
A piece of mortar was vitrified in - + §2
In short, there is hardly any body which is not destroyed
by this heat. To melt by. it any great quantity of ‘metal
much time would be required, the action, of burning not, ,...~
being performed but within the size‘ of the focus; so that
usuaily only small pietes are exposed to ite ”
M. de Villette afterwards made another of 34 inches
diameter, which inelted all sorts of metals, even iron itself, of
a
20° “y. VRARTH AND MOOR:
the thickness of a silver crown, in less than a minute of time,
and vitrifed brick in the same time; and as for wond,
»whether green or dry, it get it on fire in a moment. !
SE pn ee :
.
M. Auzour's Speculations on thie Changes likely to be discovered
in the Earth and Moon, by their Inhabitants -
I na've sometimes thought on the changes winch it. fs
likely the supposed inhfbitants of the moon “mipnt discover
in our earth, to sce whether teciprocally I could observe
any such in the moon. Yor example, that the earth would
appear to the people of the moon to have a different face in
the several seasons of the year; and to have another appear
ance in wifiter, when there is scarcely any thing green on a
very great part“of the earth; when there are countries all
covered with snow, others all covered with water, others a!
obscured with élouds, and that for many weeks together
Another face in spring, when the forests and fields are green,
‘Another in summer, when all are yellow, &c. Methinks
such changes are considerable enough, by the force of the
reflections‘ of light, to be observed, since sq many differences
of lights are seen in the moon, .
We have rivers considerable enough to be seen, and they
enter far enough into the land, and have.a breadth sufficient
tp be observed. ‘There are fluxes-in_ certain places, that
reach into large céuntrics, capable of making there some
parent change ; and in some of our seas there float some-
times such bulky niasses of ice, that are far larger than the
objects which we, are assured we can see in the moon.
Again, we cut down whole forests, and drain marshes, of mm
extent largé enough to cause a-considerable alteration : and
men have made such work, as have produced changes large
_,enough to be perceived. In many places also are volcanocs
sufliciently large to be distinguished, especially in the sha-
dow : and when forests ov great towns are on fire, it can
hardly be doubted, but these luminous objects weuld appear,
either in an eclipse of the earth, or when such parts of the
earth are not illuminated by the sun. I have sometimes
thought whether it might not be, that all the seas of the
moon, if there must be seas, were ‘not on the side of the
other hemisphere, and that, for this..cause it might be that
the moon turns not her ‘axis, as our earth, in which the lands
and ‘Seas are, a8 it were, balanced. “This also may be the
cause why. there appear not any qloudg.there, nor ony
vapours considerable enough to be s are ratsed from
“BARTH AND MOON. — INSECTS...”
the earth; and that this absence of vapours inay also. he the: {
reason that there is no twilight there, as“it seems there is
none, 1 myself at least not’ being able to discern any: for I
think the reputed inhabitants of the-moon might see our
twilight, since it is much stronger than. the light afforded us
by the moon, even, when full; i alittle after swn-set, when
we receive no*more the first light of the sun, the sky is far
clearer than it is in the fairest night of the full moon. And
since we observe in the moon, when she is increasing or
decreasing, the light she receives from the earth, we cannot
doubt but that the people of the moon should likewise see in
the carth the light with whicl. the moon iluminates it, with
perhaps the difference there is between thelr, magnitude.
Much more then. should they see the crepuscdlar light,
‘being, as was said, incomparably greater. “But yet we see
not any faint light beyond the section of ,the light, which is
almost every where equallf-strong, and we: there distinguish
nothing at all, not so much as that clearest ‘part called aris-
tarchus, or porphyrites, as I have often tried ; glthough one
may there see the light which the earth sends thither, which
is sometimes so strong, that in the moon's deercase I have -
often distinctly seen all the parts of the moon that were not
enlightened by the sun, together with the difference of the ©
clear parts and the spots, so far as to be able to discern them
all. ‘The shadows also‘of' al} the cavities of the nioon.scem
to be stronger than- they would be if there were a second
light. For although afar off the shadows of our bodies, en-
vironed with light, seem # us almost dark; yet they do rmt
appear so in the same degree as the shadows of the mocn;
and those on the edge of the section should not appear in
the like manner. ,
Swarms of mischievous Insects, in New England, .
Some few years since in New England, there was sucha
swarm of a certain kind of insects, that fer the space’ of 200
miles. they destroyed all the trees’ of the country. There
appeared innumerable little holes in the ground, out of which,
they. broke forth in the forny of maggots, which turned into
flies, with a kind of tail or sting, which they struck. into the
tree, and thereby envenomed’&nd killed ite) 7 ro.
‘The like plague'is said tq happen frequently in the country;
of the Cossaks or the Ukraine, where in dry sum t
infested with ‘such swarms of locusts,’qriven ‘thither by an
east or south-east wind, that they. the air in the
: B2 > ae!
uniriers they are :
