There remain alive, under 10 years of age, males 126, females 122, in both 248. From 70 to 75, males 12, females 21, both 33. From 75 to 80, males 8, females 3, both 11. From 80 to 85, males 3, females 6, both 9. From 85 to 90, males 3, females 5, both 8.

Houses or families in 1765, 249-in 1770, 240. Ditto, paying window tax, in 1765, 70-in 1770, 65. Void houses, none. Number of persons in 1765, 1096; ditto, in 1770, 1046. /

VII. On the Manner in which the Chinese Heat their Rooms. By Mr. Stephen de Visme. p. 59.

This is merely a letter of ceremony to introduce the following.

VIII. An Account of the Kang, or Chinese Stoves. By Father Gramont. Translated from the French. p. 61.

A kang is a kind of stove, that is heated by means of a furnace, which casts all its heat into it. Many kinds of stoves, ovens, and furnaces, have indeed been contrived elsewhere, which are somewhat like this, but the Chinese seemed to have found means to unite all their conveniences and uses in the kang. It is of various sorts; the kang with a pavement, or ti-kang; the kang for sitting people, or koa-kang; and the chimney kang, or tong-kang. As they are all made on the same principle, the description of the koa-kang may be sufficient. The parts of a kang are, 1, a furnace; 2, a pipe for the heat; 3, a brick stove; 4, two funnels for the smoke. The furnace is proportioned to the size of the stove it is intended to heat. The lowest part is the ash hole. Next the cellar. Then the furnace; having a slit, or mouth, that conveys the flame and heat into the stove by a pipe or conductor for the heat, beginning at the mouth of the furnace, and forming a channel which falls in a right angle on a second, that goes quite through under the middle of the floor, and this last pipe has vent holes here and there. The stove is a pavement made of bricks, which being supported at the four corners by little solid piles, leaves a hollow

space between them and the under pavement, where the heat remains pent up, and warms the floor. The smoke funnels are at both ends of the stove, with a little opening on the stove, and another outward, which carries off the smoke.

Nothing can be more simple than the effect resulting from the assemblage of all these parts. The heat of the furnace, impelled by the outward air, and attracted by the rarefied air of the stove, rushes through the slit, ascends into the tube, spreads through the stove by the vent holes, heats the bricks, and from

Dutch, printed at Amsterdam 1769, in 4to., with a coloured cut of the same bird. It seems to feed. equally on flesh and fish; which accounts for his uniting the characters of birds of prey, and of waders in water. M. M.-Orig.

them the whole room. The smoke, which has a free passage, is carried off by the funnels.

The furnace may be placed either in the room itself, or in the next room, or without doors. The poor, who are glad to make the most of the firing that warms the koa-kang, on which they sit by day, and sleep by night, place the furnace in the same room; the middling sort put it in an adjoining room; the rich and great have it on the outside, and most commonly behind the north wall. The furnace must be much below the level of the stove, that the heat and flame may ascend with the greater impetuosity into the conductor, and not drive up the ashes. The furnace is in the form of a cone, somewhat arched, that the activity of the heat and flame may be all impelled into the stove, and not fly off when the aperture at the top is left open. The two little moveable slips are planks, that take up occasionally, when people want to go down into the cellar and empty out the ashes. The opening in the furnace is narrow, and the lower end of the conductor must go quick up into the stove. The conductor is to be walled in very close on all sides with bricks, and well cemented with mortar made of quick lime. That which the Chinese use, is made with 1 part of white lime The black lime is found at the entrance of the coal pits, and seems to be no other than coals dissolved by rain waters. This substance mixed with white lime makes excellent mortar, nearly resembling cement. It is proof against rain and sun, and is used here to cover and shelter whatever is exposed to the weather. We should rejoice if this hint could prove useful to the British nation. If their country affords black lime, they are possessed of a great treasure.

to 2 of black.

The ground or flooring of the stove may be of beaten clay, or, what is infinitely better, bricks placed edgewise, or large paving tiles. The funnel for the smoke, or rather the two funnels, must be made with great care. Some make them terminate in little chimneys, that carry off the smoke above the roof. In the model, they open into the room, as the city poor have them, but in the country, and in gentlemen's houses, they are on the outside. It is of consequence that the little piles which support the great square bricks of the floor be very solid, and the bricks very thick and perfectly square. The Chinese bind them with a sort of cement made of white and black lime, tempered with tong yeou, which is a kind of varnish. We are apt to think walnut or linseed oil boiled would do as well. As soon as the kang is completed, fire is kindled in the furnace, to dry it quick and even. Great diligence must be used in examining it, in order to stop up all the little holes through which the smoke might escape. The wealthy, to make their kang neater, and to moderate its heat, oil the bricks of the floor, and light the fire, to make the oil penetrate deeper, and to dry them the faster. This oil is again the tong yeou, and may be supplied with walnut oil.

The bricks in the royal apartments are 2 feet square, and 4 inches thick. They cost near 100 crowns a-piece; and are so beautiful, good, and solid, that you can have no conception of any such thing beyond the seas. They are grey; but this is owing to the Chinese manner of baking their bricks and tiles, which comes nearer to that of the ancients than ours. These bricks when coloured and glazed appear as fine as marble.

When a kang is thoroughly heated, very little fire is required to keep it warm, though here the thermometer is almost all the winter at 9, 10, and even 12 or 13 degrees below the freezing point, in Reaumur's thermometer; and though all the rooms are on the ground floor, and have nothing but windows, and those paper windows, all over the front, which is commonly to the south, the warmth of the kang is sufficient to keep up their temperature at 7 or 8 degrees above frost, with very little fire constantly kept up. It seldom rises to more than 4 or 5 degrees in the emperor's apartments, owing to the double row of bricks; but the warmth is very gentle and very penetrating.

As a kang is heated by a furnace, any kind of fuel will do, viz. wood, charcoal, sea coal, furze, &c. The Chinese make the most of every thing. In the palace they burn nothing but wood, or a kind of coal which neither smokes nor smells, and burns like tinder. The generality of people burn sea coal: the poor in the country make use of furze, straw, cow dung, &c. A great saving may accrue from the following observation: the Chinese, to save coals, pound them to the size of coarse gravel, and mix them with one third, or even an equal quantity, of good yellow clay. This mixture being well kneaden, they make it up into bricks, which strike a greater heat than wood, and come incomparably cheaper. The sea coal thus tempered is far less offensive; and besides, the Chinese, in order to draw off the noisome vapours of the air, constantly heated by the coal fire, always keep bowls of water in the rooms, and renew them now and then. The gold fishes that are kept in these bowls are both an ornament and amusement. In the palace, the emperor's apartments are decorated with flower pots, and little orange trees, &c. The Chinese philosophers pretend that this is the best way to sweeten the air, and absorb the fiery particles dispersed in it. They likewise leave 2 panes open night and day at the top of each window, to renew the air, which they think is too much rarefied by the heat.

The kang is attended with many advantages and conveniencies. 1°. The rich and great are not exposed to the troublesome attendance on a fire in the chimney, and enjoy all its benefits. 2°. The poor use all sorts of fuel without any other expence than what the kitchen requires, and have the comfort of sitting warm. by day, and lying warm by night. The fire in the furnace serves to dress victuals, and to heat the stove. The poor go still further, they enclose within the brick work of the kang a vessel, either of copper tinned, or of iron, which

supplies them with hot water for their tea. This water evaporates in the night, moistens the air of the room, and absorbs the noxious particles of the sea coal. . The Chinese sea coal may give some insight into the formation, qualities, uses, and nature of this singular fossil; but this would require a separate paper. All we shall here observe is, that, as far as we can judge from the samples we have seen, it seems for the most part to be a stone dissolved by the waters, and impregnated with sulphur. Its hurtful qualities proceed from a mixture of antimony, copper, iron, &c. The best coal, and that which burns fiercest, is glossy, hard, and brittle. The Chinese are very fond of that sort that flies and snaps in the fire, to burn in their forges, because it contains a great deal of saltpetre. When the flame is blue, it is very fierce, but it is too dangerous, as the sulphur is too predominant.

IX. Of a Remarkable Thunder Storm. By the Rev. Anthony Williams, Rector of St. Keverne in Cornwall. p. 71.

For several days before the thunder storm which fell on St. Keverne spire and church, on Sunday the 18th day of February 1770, the wind was very hard at N. and N. w. accompanied with violent showers of hail, which had done some damage to the roof of the church, and many houses in the church town. On the Sunday morning above-mentioned, the wind being at N. w. from 5 o'clock during almost the whole day the wind was excessive hard; and about 6, were some few faint flashes of lightning. The weather being so bad, prevented many people from coming to church, which probably was a happy circumstance; for, about a quarter after 11 o'clock, while Mr. W. was in the latter part of the Litany service, there was a very fierce flash of lightning, followed at the distance of about 4 or 5 seconds by the loudest thunder he remembers ever to have heard; but which did no damage, nor seemed in the least to disturb any of the congregation, though at the same time the roof of the church was rifling, and the hail made a noise terrible to be heard. In half a minute after this, the whole congregation, except 5 or 6 persons, were at once struck out of their senses. Mr. W. received the shock so suddenly as not to remember he either heard the thunder or saw the lightning; the first thing that he recollected with any degree of certainty was, that he found himself in the vicarage seat, which is very near the desk, without either gown or surplice, bearing in his arms as he then thought a dead sister, and God knows it was a miracle that she was not so; he perceived a very strong sulphureous smell, almost suffocating, and a great heat. At this time the confusion among the congregation was inconceivable, some running out of the church for safety, and returning into it again, for the stones from the roof were falling on their heads both in and out of the church; some on their knees, imploring the divine assistance, giving themselves up to certain

destruction; and a great many, in different places of the church, lying quite motionless, whom he thought then to be quite dead.

In the afternoon, Mr. W.'s thoughts being a little composed, he walked to the church, to see what damage was done; and such a scene presented, as is horrible to think of, much more to see. The church-yard was almost full of ruins; the spire, which was about 48 feet high from the battlements of the tower, was carried off half way down, and the remaining part cracked in 4 places very irregularly down to the bottom, The north side of the tower, from the battlements to the arch of the bell chamber window, was quite out, except the corner stones, which remained firm; the lead on the top of the tower was greatly damaged, melted in several places, and as it were rolled together. The arch of the belfry door, which was very strongly built with a remarkably hard iron stone, laid in lead, was also greatly damaged; some of the stones were cracked crossways, and just removed out of their places, others were quite thrown out, and the lead between the joints not only melted, but loosened so as that they might be picked out with your fingers. The traces of the lightning were here discovered along the surface of the earth; the stones were thrown from the spire on the tops of many houses in the Church town, but did no great hurt; in a gentleman's house, one stone weighing 14 pounds fell through the roof into the chamber, but did no further hurt than to make a hole in the roof and plastering. The stones from the spire were scattered in all directions, as well against the wind as with it, some of which, but not very large, were found but a little short of a quarter of a mile. The spire from the top 6 feet downwards was solid, through which passed an iron spindle to fix the weather-cock on. Did not the lightning first strike on this iron, and was conducted through the solid part of the spire, and having not iron to conduct it any further, burst in the hollow part of the spire, and threw the stones about in all directions? It is remarkable that the spindle was found in the bell-chamber, and the weather-cock in the battlements; and that the bells were not in the least damaged, though a deal board, that lay across the beams to which the bells were hung, was split long-ways in 2 pieces. The inside of the church still presented a much more horrible spectacle; the roof of the church was almost all gone, and some of the timber-work in the north aisle shattered to pieces; every seat in the church had rubbish in it, more or less, and stones of large size, some of 150 pounds weight and upwards, scattered here and there amidst the congregation, which damaged the seats, &c. but did, no hurt to the people, though they sat in those very seats where the stones fell. The lightning entered at the three ends of the church at west, made its way through the body of the church, and went out through the 3 ends of the church at east; the holes where it came in and where it went out are not large,

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