all other officers and ministers attending the fame, fhall be chofe at the feffions at Hicks's Hall, by the majority of the juftices there prefent, by ballot.

57. That all fines and forfeitures to be impofed or to accrue by virtue of this act, not otherwife difpofed of, fhall be paid to the treasurer of the county- A houfe, and be applied to the use of the faid houfe.

58. The governor may make by-laws with the confent of the juftices, the fame to approved by the lord chancellor. 59. Perfons tried, &c. fhall plead this ad, &e.

The INSPECTOR, Feb. 6.

of Gold and Silver WIRZ-DRAWING. (See p. 71.)

E will now fuppofe ourselves pof

Weferred of the river in the bar, as

who have power to improve the arts are not called in to do it, are obliged to procure thofe engines from them. The exporting them from France is wifely made capital; but as we can draw no wire without them, we find means to procure them.

When we have thefe, the difficulty is to imitate the ufe their inventors make of them. The French foon found that filver, which had fome degree of hardness, was the brightest: They found this ren dered it liable to inconveniences in the working and they applied to their fupervifors the objection was plain, and the difficulty was eafily removed. They were B directed to give the bars the neceffary heat in a particular manner; and they fucceeded: The filver only altered its temper as it paffed thro' the hole of the engine; and recovered it immediately after. To this is owing the excellency of the filver wire of Lions. With us, if an amendment in the quality of the

the French have it; and it is then to be delivered to the wire-drawer. That the French have excelled us in this art is C filver be attempted, and this neceffary

certain; and it is not much a wonder; the men of greatest genius in that country bave employed their talents in its fervice: They have examined the works, and they have infructed the workmen. In Paris there is a Royal Society: All the men of abilities are of it, and scarce any others. The most confiderable of thefe

confequence attend it, the wire-drawer throws it down: It will not do: He knows not how to remedy the fault: And there is an end of the improvement.

Thus much as to the filver, for in the wire this is all the difference: The gold wire of Paris does not at the first look fo bright as ours, but it continues what

lace, is inferior. The French ufe pure filver, viz. filver without any alloy, for the bars that are to be gilded; we put into it a little of the copper, and that is the fource of all the difference.

are paid by the fovereign for directing Dit was, and ours in twice wearing in the their talents to ufeful purposes; and what he has given in penfions, they have repaid in the improvement of his commerce. It is to thefe France owes its fuperiority in many articles of the manufactures; and in none more than this. The chemift alone could improve an art, the whole foundation of which is in chemistry.

One of the academicians invented the metal, of which they were to make their engines: Another difcovered the true temper and condition of filver, for fhewing of gold on its furface; and a third proportioned even the degree of heat, neceffary to be employed in the working. There, every the minuteft branch of the work was under the inspection of fuch as had talents, and could not only difcover a fault, but fee and remedy the occafion of it: With us, all is in the hands of ignorant perfons, who go on mechanically; and having no knowledge of the principles of their bufinefs, can never alter any thing that is amifs.

The matter of which thofe plates are made, with holes that shape the wire, is a mixt metal. The compofition is kept a fe.ret in the country where it ww.li.vented; and we, with whom thofe

E

F

G

It is not that this small portion of copper fhews itself thro' the gold; that were idle to imagine: But it alters the quality of the filver. The circumftance is this: Gold laid upen filver in ever fo fmall a quantity in the bar, will cover it equally when drawn into the finest wire: But the purer the filver is, the more closely it will cover it; the evener the surface of that metal, the more fmooth it will lie upon it: And on this smoothness depends in a great measure the glofs and lustre.

Pure filver is, next to gold, the most even on its furface of all metals; but the addition of copper renders it unequal: Ever fo fmall a portion of that mixture will have this effect in fome degree; and every degree of it will be perceived in this nice manufacture; the French made many experiments of filver, with different degrees of alloy, to know which fucceeded beft in the wire for gilding. Thofe perfons of judgment and knowledge have already named, were at their head : They were ready not only to propofe the

1753. Dr. STUKELY, of the Caufes of Earthquakes. 79

best methods, but to remedy inconveniences. It was difcovered that pure filver thewed the gold to moft advantage; but the wire-drawers found the gold funk into it in the working. The objection was no fooner made than the remedy was difcovered. Some degree of heat is to be given to all the bars in drawing them A into wire, and thefe required leaft. Here was all the mystery: The workmen were fet right, and they have continued fo : And to this is owing the fuperiority of the gold lace of Paris to that of London. The very means by which this is effected there, have been tried here; and the objection has been found, but it was never remedied. Bars of pure filver gilded, were feen to preferve and fhew the gold vaftly better than those which had any degree of alloy; but the wire-drawer found the gold apt to fink into them in the working. He gave his objection, and the attempt was no more heard of.

B

C

There are ways of decompofing all mixed metals; there will be no difficulty in finding what is the compofition of the French wire-plates; and they may be made here. As to the filver wire of Lions, all that is wanting to our equalling it, is the drawing a proper filver; filver obtained from the Potofi ores, or refined with nitre, or by diffolution, and hardened properly by the alloy. To equal the gold of Paris, there needs only to ufe D pure filver for the wire, and to lay on a proper quantity of gold. All that remains is with the workman; he must be aught to apply his fire in a proper manner to the filver, and to use a smaller degree of it than ordinarily is done to the gold,

E

N-497, of the Philofophical Transactions,
lately publifbed, is in a Manner wholly taken
up with Letters and Papers concerning the
two Shocks of an Earthquake felt at London
on Feb. 8, and March 8, 1749-50
and others that happened in England the
Jame Year. We fball only infert here an
Abfiralt of the Letter of the Rev. W. F
Stukely, M. D. and F, R. S. on the
Causes of Earthquakes. It is dated, March
13, 1749-50.

IN the works of nature and Providence

nevertheless we ourfelves are more affected with what feems great, in our own apprehenfions; but an Omnipotent Power G admits of no diftin&tions; and whilft prodigious effects are produced from caufes imperceptible, it rightly claims our serious attention, as well as wonder; nor need

we lofe fight of the theological purpose of thefe amazing alarms, whilft we endeavour to find out the philosophy of

them.

Permit me, then, to throw in my thoughts on the caufe of Earthquakes. I did not enter into the common notion of struggles between fubterraneous winds, or fires, vapours, or waters, that heaved up the ground, like animal convulfions; but I always thought it was an electrical shock.

When we reflect on the unusual winter now paft, beyond what occurs to any one's memory, that it has been dry and warm to an extraordinary degree, the wind generally S. and S. W. and thas without rain, we may, with much reason imagine, that the earth has been in a ftate of electricity, ready for that particular vibration wherein electricity confits.

And that it has been fo, we may further conclude from the extraordinary forwardness of vegetation, from the frequency of the northern lights, and efpecially of that called Aurora australis, which are with us infrequent, and twice repeated, juft before the earthquakes, (being of fuch colours as we had never feen before), and removed fouthward, quite contrary to thofe common with us.

Add to this, that fome foreigners among us from Italy, and thofe parts, where earthquakes are frequent, obferving thefe lights, and the particular temper of the air, did actually forefee the event of an earthquake. All these matters concur, in fhewing, that the earth was in a fate of electricity, beyond what has ever been in our memory.

Admitting this, there is nothing wanting, to produce the wonderful effect of an earthquake, but the touch of any non-electrick body; and that must neceffarily be had ab extra, from the region of the air, or atmosphere.

We had lately a very pretty difcourfe read here, from Mr. Franklyn of Phiand like meteors. He well folves them ladelphia, concerning thundergufts, lights, by the touch of clouds, raifed from the the fea, (which are non-electricks) and of clouds raifed from exhalations of the land (which are electrified): That little fnap, which we hear, in our electrical experiments, when produced by a thoufand miles compafs of clouds, and that re-echoed from cloud to cloud, the extent of the firmament, makes that thunder, which affrightens us.

From the fame principle I infer, that, if a non-electrick cloud difcharges its con

• See Lond. Mag. for 1750, p. 91, 138,

tents

An Abstract of the: LIFE of Biftep BURNET, by Sir THOMAS BURNET, Knt. late one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. (Deg ibe HEAD curiously engraved.):

R. Gilbert Burnet was born at Edin

Dburgh, Sept. 16. 1643. His father

A was the younger brother of a family, ve ry confiderable for its antiquity as well as intereft, in the thire of Aberdeen ; and his mother was fifter to the famous Si Archibald Johnftoun, called lord Warriftoun. The doctor's father having been bred to the law, was called to the bar in Scotland; but was obliged to give over practice, and even for fome time to live. in exile, for not complying with the governing powers during the ufurpation, tho' he might have had any encouragement by means of his brother-in-law, the faid Sir Archibald, who was a chief leader among the Prefbyterians; therefore, upon the restoration he was made a lord of feffion, but died in 1661.

THE NEW YORK
UBLIC LIBRARY

ADATIONS

L