nutritious juices, in vegetables, something similar or analogous to that of the blood in animal bodies: and if so, why may not the vegetables, as well as the animals, have some way or other of sweating out the redundant juices? That there is indeed something in all of them analogous to perspiration in animals is highly probable; but that it is sensible in some, the 4th and 5th experiments plainly evince. And of these secretions we should be witnesses, day as well as night, did not the sun at that time, exhale the moisture as fast as it exsudates, nay several times faster, for when the heat is extreme, it exhausts the vessels of their nutrimental juice to such a degree, that the plant languishes and droops till the sun retires, and the waste is again made up by a fresh supply from the root. It seems to be these secretions which keep the common cabbage fresh and cool in the very hottest day; for did it not evacuate this cooling fluid in such large quantities, being such a gross and succulent plant, it would quickly languish and become quite flaccid. Of the truth of this any one may be convinced, by cutting one directly through the middle; for upon examining the several plicatures or folds, they will be found plentifully stored with drops of dew.

But the most remarkable instance of evacuations of this kind, in plants, is the Nepenthes. At the extremities of the leaves of this plant are certain vessels of a considerable bigness, on purpose to receive and preserve the superfluous juices, which it discharges in great abundance. A particular account of this wonderful plant may be seen in the 25th No. of Eden; from which I shall make the following extract, as it is very much to my purpose. "Glands of the secretory kind are very common in plants, though rarely conspicuous. They cover the whole stalk in the diamond masembryanthemum; in the urena, they are situated on the back of the leaf; and, in the sundew, on its upper surface. All these secrete a watery fluid, but it is in few instances that it is detained in a kind of vessel. We see it so, however, in the leaves of the saracena; in the maregravia it is lodged in a kind of vessel raised from the centre of the umbel; and in the nepenthes, not in the leaf itself, but in a peculiar appendage. We see the sundew, a minute plant, throw out its redundant moisture in big round drops. In the Ethiopian calla, when over-supplied with water, the fine and slender extremities of the leaves sweat out the load in a continual succession: this Comeline saw in Holland, as well as several persons in England. In the American hart's-tongue, the

same incident propagates the plant. The fine and small end of the leaf is bent to the earth by the weight of the drop it gradually secretes; another and another follows, as it remains in that situation, and the plant, being full of life, takes root there, and produces a new stock, itself fixed to the earth by roots at each extremity. These are known instances of a secretion of this kind, though not generally understood; and this in the nepenthes is little more. It grows in thick forests, where its long fibres supply it well with water, and where no sun comes to exhale it."

1757, Oct.

A. B.

XXVIII. Observations on the Gossamer.

I Do not remember to have met with a full and clear ac count, in any ancient or modern writer, of a remarkable phenomenon in nature, commonly called the Gossamer. I hope, therefore, the following remarks will not be unacceptable to the public, especially to the lovers of natural philosophy. The Gossamer is a fine filmy substance, like cobwebs, which is seen to float in the air, in clear sunny days in autumn; but much more observable in stubble-fields, and upon furze, and other low bushes. I often used to wonder from whence such a quantity of those fine threads could come, which I had frequently taken notice of in the stubblefields about Wandsworth, and on the furze bushes on Wimbledon and Putney commons. Yet I thought, that, as they had the appearance of the work of Spiders, I might find some such creatures in, or about them. I examined, therefore, the ground in the stubbles, and the bushes, on which they hung the thickest, with great diligence, but could not discover any thing like spiders, in those places, though I concluded there must be thousands of them somewhere, to be capable of making such multitudes of fine webs, and sometimes for many days together. Now it happened that awhile after (not having been able to satisfy myself in my inquiries on this subject) as I was reading over Mr. Ray's letters, I found what I had been puzzling myself about so long to no purpose.

That sagacious naturalist, about the year 1668, in a letter

which he wrote to Dr. Lister*, tells him, that he had been in formed by a friend, that some spiders threw out, or darted, their webs from them to a considerable distance obliquely, and not strait downwards; adding, he could not conceive how that could be done, seeing their threads are very fine and soft, and not stiff like a stick. To this Dr. Lister answers†, that in the foregoing September, being a spider-hunting, he first observed the aranea volucris, or flying spider, and took no tice, that she turned up her tail to the wind, and darted forth a thread several yards long; the Dr.'s original here is expressed by a comical simile, that is, Filumque ejaculata est quo plane modo robustissimus juvenis e distentissima vesica urinam, and this he saw afterwards confirmed by many like examples.

Some time after this, Mr. Ray informed Dr. Lister, that though he was pleased with the notices that he had given him concerning the flying spiders, he himself never doubted, but those fine cobwebs, that are seen floating in the air, were the work of spiders; and adds, that the Royal Society had received letters from the island of Bermudas, which de clare, that the webs of their spiders are of a sufficient thick. ness and strength to entangle thrushes. But Dr. Lister, when he had read those letters from Bermudas, thought it ridiculous to suppose (as was intimated therein) that their threads were darted from their mouths; for, according to his observations, they were ejected from the anus, and he seems to disbelieve the story of the thrushes. He says, moreover, that he is certain these flying spiders do not traverse the expanse merely for their pleasure, but to catch gnats, and other small flies, of which there are incredible quantities in autumn in the open air. And, in another letter which Dr. Lister sent Mr. Ray, dated York, Jan. 20, 1670, he acquaints him, that, in the foregoing October, on a day when the sky was very calm and serene, he mounted to the top of the highest steeple in the Minster, and could thence discern flying spiders with their webs exceedingly high above him.

Now, though this full discovery of the flying spiders, and their operations, seems to belong to Dr. Lister, yet Dr. Hulse was the first who gave the hint to Mr. Ray of the manner of spiders shooting their threads. These observations, however, made by Dr. Lister, make it plain, I think, that the Gossamer is formed by those spiders, at a vast height in

the air; and that, when it is very much rarified, or the dew falls upon their threads, they descend to the ground, or fall upon bushes, in the manner I mentioned above. Yet there remains one difficulty, which I shall be glad to see resolved, and that is, where those millions of spiders are bred; whether they deposit their eggs on earth, or in water, or on trees, from whence they can mount to such a height in the air, to feed upon little flies, as Dr. Lister observes, that afford them such a glutinous matter for the formation of their webs, which have that sticking quality. Conjectures, in an affair of this nature, are by no means satisfactory, and I have met with no experimental observations upon their origin.

I am of opinion likewise, that this phenomenon was not known to, or at least is not described by any of the Greek and Roman naturalists. I know of no name for it in either of those languages. And those, who derive Gossamer from Gossipium, are led into that mistake, I believe, from the similitude of the sound; one being the produce of a shrub, and the other the work of spiders. I rather take Gossamer to be of a British or Saxon original. I observe, indeed, that Mr. Dryden makes use of that word, in his translation of a passage in Virgil's first Georgic, v. 397; but I think he is manifestly mistaken in the thing. Virgil says,

Tenuia nec lane per cælum vellera ferri.

Doubtless meaning thereby fine fleecy clouds, according to the concurrent opinion of the commentators upon that place. This Mr. Dryden incautiously renders thus:

The filmy Gossamer now flits no more.

That the Gossamer was not unknown in Chaucer's time, appears from the following lines, in his Squier's Tale :

As sore wondren some on cause of thonder,
On ebbe and floud, on Gossomer, and on mist,
And on all thing til that the cause is wist.

By which Chaucer seems to intimate, that some naturalists, in or before his time, had assigned the cause of the Gossamer, as well as of thunder, and of the flux and reflux of the sea; but what they made that cause is a doubt.

The fine contexture and appearance of the Gossamer in the air is humourously described by Shakespeare, in his Romeo and Juliet, in these words:

A lover may bestride the Gossamour,
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

Lastly, I have not observed that this curious phenomenon has been taken notice of by any of those writers, who have given us the natural history of our counties in English; which I the more wonder at, as Dr. Plot, and some others, are very circumstantial in articles of less curiosity, and perhaps of less service, because the country people have a notion, that it is injurious to their cattle, being licked up in their feeding in the lattermaths, which is a thing worthy of a further inquiry.

1759, Aug.

WM. MASSEY.

XXIX. On the Influx of Water into the Mediterranean.

NAVIGATORS unanimously attest, that in the straits of Gibraltar, between Cape Trafalgar and Cape Spartel, a strong current carries the water of the Atlantic, or Spanish sea, into the Mediterranean. This current, which is not at all times equally strong, is perceived in the Mediterranean at the distance of 20 English miles from the Straits towards the coast of Malaga. Some assure us that they have observed it at the distance of 70 miles near Cape Gaeta.

The existence of this current is confirmed by the chart of the Strait, published in 1700, by M. d'Ablancourt, who observes, that the constancy of the current is such in the middle of the Strait, that the tides make no variation in it; but that towards the two sides the water follows the ordinary laws of the flux and reflux in the 24 hours. This chart is the more to be depended upon, as it was drawn by order of the king of Portugal, from careful observations made by the most able and experienced engineers and mariners.

Hudson adds, in the Philosophical Transactions, that in the middle of the Strait, which is about 5 English miles over, the current is carried towards the Mediterranean with such rapidity, that it runs at the rate of two miles an hour, and is so deep, that the longest line of a ship of war cannot reach the bottom of it. Other relations inform us that the strength of this current will carry a ship into the Mediterranean against the wind, if it be not very high. A few years ago a celebrated admiral confirmed this fact by his own experience. But he found, at the same time, that the upper part of the