A Letter from Robert More Esq; to the President, Containing Several Curious Remarks in His Travels through Italy

IX. A Letter from Robert More Esq; to the President, containing several curious Remarks in his Travels through Italy. SIR, Read June 14. I find myself so agreeably led through Italy by your Letter, which I received from Mr. Watson, that I cannot help adding to the Trouble I before gave you, this, with my hearty Thanks. When I got to Barcelona, I did not indeed find an Opportunity of going immediately to Naples, as you proposed; yet am I not sorry that I was forced through the South of France, where are many Places, I thought, well worth seeing. When I got into Italy, it was most convenient for me to hasten to Rome; where I spent the Winter; and went early to meet the Spring at Naples; from which I began your Route. You cannot more regret your own not having seen the natural Curiosities of that Place, than I do the Loss thereby to the Public. The Voyage-writers do not seem to me sufficiently to have considered the Force and Effects of Steam, which may be formed by Springs of Water falling upon a vast Surface of the fluid Lava, and talk too much of Sulphur, deceived by the Complexion of a Salt that covers the Ground in some Places there. In the Solfatara I held a cold Iron in the Vent, and there ran down it a Stream of Water. When I went down into the Crater on the Top of Vesuvius, it was full of Smoak. Smoak. Yet I did not perceive it suffocating, and thought it Steam. The Guides indeed tell the English, that a Milorde of their Country was suffocated there: Being asked his name, they think it was my Lord Plinio. That which they call Sulphur, when I got it home, ran per deliquium. I owe to you the seeing of Beneventum; a Place full of Antiquities. At Arienzzo, a Village halfway to it, I saw Coppice-woods, from which they make Manna. They are of the Tree which our Gardeners call the flowering Ash. The Manna is procured by wounding the Bark at the Season, and catching the Sap in Cups: It begins to run (they used the Scripture-Term Piovere, i.e. to rain) the Beginning of August; and, if the Season proves dry, they gather it 5 or 6 Weeks. The King has a great Revenue from it; yet the Tree grows as well in England. At Terni I was obliged to your Directions for seeing the Cascade below, as well as above. I went down by the Side of the Precipice; which I believe few have done; or they would not imagine the Fall so little as Misson make it, very short of what the People of the Place call it.—Mr. Addison, on the contrary, makes the Aqueduct at Spoleto as many Yards, as I take it to be Palms. One finds indeed strange Incorrectness in all the Travel-writers (tho' you very justly recommended the best) when one reads them upon the Spot.—One of them conjectures the fine Bridge in Ruins at Narni might have been an Aqueduct, which manifestly rose all the Way towards the Town, to ease the steep Ascent to it. But I was most surprised to see Mr. Addison misquote quote a Latin Verse of Bembo's, under a Statue of Bacchus, which I think he calls Apollo's. I believe the Museum of the Specula at Bologna is improved since you were there; the joint Collections of Count Marsigli, Marchese Cospi, Aldrovandus, and others, form the finest Sett of natural Curiosities I ever saw; and are now improving by the Munificence of the present Pope. I had certainly missed seeing the continual Fires upon the Apennines, by the Badness of the Weather, if it had not been for your Caution. I indeed saw that at Fiorenzuola only at a Distance; but I spent good Part of a Night over a more considerable one, as they told me, at Pietra Mala, a Village among the Snows. The Fire I imagine to be of the same sort with that about a little Well at Brosely* in Shropshire; of which I think the Society has had an Account; the same as of the foul Air sent them from Sir James Lowther's† Coal-pits; and the like made by a Gentleman with Filings of Iron and Oil of Vitriol. The Flame here, when I saw it, was extremely bright, cover'd a Surface of about 3 Yards by 2, and rose about 4 Feet high. After great Rains and Snows, they said, the whole bare Patch, of about 9 Yards Diameter, flames. The Gravel, out of which it rises, at a very little Depth, is quite cold. There are three of these Fires in that Neighbourhood; and there was one they call extinct. I went to the Place to light it up again, and left it flaming. --- * See Philos. Trans. No. 482, p. 371. † No. 482, p. 109. No. 442, p. 282. The Middle of the last Place is a little hollowed, and had in it a Puddle of Water: There were strong Ebullitions of Air through the Water. But that Air would not take Fire; yet what rose through the Wet wet and cold Gravel flamed brightly. Near either of these Flames, removing the Surface of the Gravel, that below would take Fire from lighted Matches. Sir, I beg Leave to repeat my Thanks for your kind Assistance in this Tour, and to profess myself Your most obliged, and Leighorn, June 5. N. S. 1750. obedient Servant, Robert More. X. Extract of Letter from Mr. William Arderon F. R. S. to Mr. Henry Baker F. R. S. containing an Account of a Dwarf; together with a Comparison of his Dimensions with those of a Child under four Years old; by David Erskine Baker. Norwich, May 12, 1750. Read June 14. "JOHN Coan, a Dwarf, was born at Twitshall in Norfolk, in the Year 1728, and has been shewn in this City for some Weeks past. I weigh'd him myself Apr. 3, 1750, and his Weight, with all his Cloaths, was no more than 34 Pounds. I likewise carefully measured him, and found