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110
ANNUAL REGISTER

In regard to the difference of seasons, he prescribes that in the summer you should put your water blood-warm, and, in winter in cold frosty weather, as warm as you can bear your hand in it without making it smart; being sure you cover up your dough very warm in the winter, and your covering of it with dry flour, every time you add warm water, will keep in the heat; when you have added six or eight quarts of warm water, as before mentioned, in such a gradual way, you will find all that body of flour which is mixed with the warm water, by virtue of that one teaspoonful of barm, brought into great agitation, waxing, or fermenting; for it is to the flour what the spirit is to the body, it soon fills it with motion.

Receipt for making the Powder of Fumigation, to prevent the Infection of the Plague, invented by the Commission at Moscow, in the Year 1771.

The commission at Moscow having in the last year invented a fumigation-powder, which, from several lesser experiments, had proved efficacious in preventing the infection of the plague; in order more fully to ascertain its virtue in that respect, it was determined, towards the end of the year, that ten malefactors, under sentence of death, should, without undergoing any other precautions than the fumigations, be confined three weeks in a lazarette, be laid upon the beds, and dressed in the cloaths [[cloathes]], which had been used by persons sick, dying, and even dead, f the plague, in the hospital.  The experiment was accordingly tried, and none of the ten malefactors were then infected, or have been since ill.  The fumigation-powder is prepared as follows:

Powder of the first strength.

Take leaves of juniper, juniper-berries pounded, ears of wheat, guaiacum-wood pounded, of each six pounds; common saltpetre [[saltpeter]] pounded, eighth pounds; sulphur pounded, six pounds; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, two pounds; mix all the above ingredients together, which will produce a pood of the powder of fumigation of the first strength.

N.B. A pood is forty pounds Russian, which are equal to thirty-five pounds and a half, or thirty-six pounds English averdupoise [[avoirdupois]].

Powder of the second strength.

Take southernwood cut into small pieces, five pounds; leaves of juniper cut into small pieces, four pounds; juniper-berries pounded, three pounds; common saltpetre pounded, four pounds; sulphur pounded, two pounds and a half; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, one pound and a half; mix the above together, which will produce half a pood of the powder of fumigation of the second strength.

Odoriferous Powder.

Take the root called kalmus cut into small pieces, three pounds; frankincense pounded grossly, one pound; storax pounded, and rose flowers, half a pound; yellow amber pounded, one pound; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, one pound; common saltpetre pounded, one pound and a half; sulphur, a quarter of a pound; mix all the above together, which will produce nine pounds and three quarters of the odoriferous powder.

For the YEAR 1772.
111

Remark on the powder of fumigation.
If guaiacum cannot be had, the cones of pines or firs may be used in its stead; likewise the common tar of pines and firs may be used instead of the Smyrna tar, or myrrh, and mugwort may supply th eplace of southernwood.

An easy Method of preserving Subjects in Spirits.  From the American Philosophical Transactions, Vol. I. just published.

PERSONS curious in preserving specimens for natural history, are often disappointed by the evaporation of the spirts, which occasions the loss of the subject intended to be preserved, or they must be very careful in often examining their bottles, or putting spirits in such as they find have occasion for a fresh supply, which, in a large collection, requires much time, trouble, and expence [[expense]].  This induced Mr. de Reaumur to try many experiments, in order to obviate this inconvenience, which he gave to the public in a long dissertation, inserted in the memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, for the year 1746.  After mentioning his different trials, he recommends two methods.

The first is, to get bottles with glass stoppers, of a conic form, in the part that enters the neck of the bottle, and broad and flat at the other end.  When the spirits and specimen, supported by a piece of wire, are put in, a little mercury must be thrown into the bottle, and the stopper fixed in its place, and secured by a piece of bladder or leather tied round it and the neck of the bottle; the whole must be reversed, and placed on the broad end of the stopper, which occasions the mercury to settle between the neck of the bottle and the stopper, and obstructs the evaporation of the spirits by the only passage through which the fine parts could fly off.  He says, nut-oil, thickened to the consistence of honey, by a long exposure to the air, which will give it weight sufficient to sink in a weak spirit, may supply the place of mercury.

The second method is, for bottles that have not glass stoppers, for which he recommends a layer, of about two lines thickness on the inside of the bladder, which is to cover the mouth of the bottle, of nut oil prepared as before directed, and, when the bladder is well tied on, the bottle may be reversed without any hazard; but great care must be had to wipe the edge of the bottle very dry, that the oil may adhere to it in every part.  As many bottles will not stand on their mouths, Mr. de Reamur directs their being placed in wooden cups, turned with a broad bottom and a hollow, sufficient to receive the neck of the bottle.

These two methods, though well calculated to answer the end proposed, have some inconveniencies.  In the first, the bottles must be designedly made for this use, and of flint, that the stoppers may be ground into them, which, with the cost of the mercury, is a considerable expence, besides the difficulty persons at a distance from a glass-house will find in procuring them.  In the second, the preparing oil, so that it may thicken to the consistence of honey, is a work of years.  The operation may be much shortened, by putting the oil about two lines thickness in leaden vessels, as that metal has a considerable effect on the oil, which may by this means be