An Account of the Aponensian Baths Near Padua; Communicated by the Foremention'd Inquisitive Gentleman, Mr. Dodington, in a Letter Written to the Publisher from Venice March 18. 1672

is observ'd in Calabria, and is call'd in their language Coccio magno. It ariseth on the surface of the body, in the form of a small speck, of the bigness of a lupin. It causeth some pain, and if it grow not soon red thereupon, it in a very short time certainly kills. 'Tis the common opinion of those people, that such a distemper befalls those only, that have eaten flesh of Animals dead of themselves: which opinion I can from experience affirm to be false. So it frequently falls out, that of many strange effects, we daily meet with, the true cause not being known, such an one is assigned, which is grounded upon some vulgar prejudice. And of this kind I esteem to be the vulgar belief of the cause of that distemper, which appears in those that think themselves stung by Tarantulas. But why should not we rather think, that that distemper is caused by an inward disposition, like that which in some places of Germany is wont to produce that evil, which they call Chore Sti Viti, St. Vite's dance. But of this I hope I shall soon be able to write my thoughts more fully, which will, I think, be sufficient to refute that fable of the Tarantula. An Account of the Apouensian Baths near Padua; communicated by the forementioned Inquisitive Gentleman, Mr. Dodington, in Letter written to the Publisher from Venice March 18. 1672. SIR, In the Observations and History of Nature possibly this may not be unworthy the notice. Five miles from Padua are the waters, call'd Aponensis, from a town called Aponum, famous in antiquity, and among others frequently mention'd by Livy. Will not doubt, but that Sr. I.F. and D.B., two worthy members of the R.Society and who lived long in Padova, have inform'd themselves most exactly of what ever I shall be able to say on this Subject; however I do not scruple to give you a short relation of it. The waters are actually very hot. Secondly, they are stinking. Thirdly, they yield a great deal of very fine salt; of which the natives serve themselves in their ordinary occasions. This salt is the thing, I think most considerable there. It is gather'd in this manner: The Natives, after Sunset, stir pieces of wood in the water, and presently the Salt sticks to them, and comes off in small flakes, exceeding white, and very salt. This never looses its favour. The people there, with the same water use to wash their wales, to render them whiter than ordinary; which it doth even whiter than lime. Such wales conserve their saltness some few daies only, and then become insipid, even though they sweat forth a white excrescence in thin and light flakes like niter, many years after. But that Salt, which is collected from the stones, gravel and earth, by which the rivolets, descending from those Baths, do run, is without any tatt of Salt; though there be no difference in the form or colour from that which is gather'd with the wooden instruments, by me mentioned. This is the Sum of what I have to say at present of this particular. If you think the matter tanti, I will send you a more ample description thereof, with my thoughts upon it. Reflections made by P. Francisco Lana S.J. upon an Observation of Signor M. Antonio Castagna, Superintendent of some mines in Italy, concerning the formation of Crystals: English'd out of the XI. Venetian Giornale de Letterati. In the last month of September, being arrived in the Val Sabbia into a place call'd le Mezzane, where I knew that those Crystals are generated, I observ'd in a spacious round of a Meddow, seated on a hillock, some narrow places bare of all herbs, in which alone, and no where else thereabout, those Crystals are produced, being all sex-angular, both points of them terminating in a pyramidal figure, sex-angular likewise. I was told, that they were produced from the dews, because (forsooth!) being gather'd over night, the next morning there would be found others at such a time only, when it was a serene and dewy sky; and that upon the herbs of the meddow, and without the bounds of those bare and sterile places never any Crystals were to be found; besides, that the ground having been in some places bared of all greens, and reduced to the condition of those other naked places, yet no crystals were ever seen to have been form'd there. But I, when I had examined, that in the neighbour-hood of that hill there was no mark at all of any Mines, did conclude, that it might be a plenty of nitrous steames, which might withal hinder vegetation in those places, and coagulate the Dew falling thereon. And that those exhalations were rather Nitrous, than of an other kind, I was induced to believe, because Niter is not only the natural coagulum of water