Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/478

 ness from sea-water and making it drinkable, which is said to have belonged to the Royal Society with his ‘sphere of iron on which a small compass moved in various directions.’

Several letters to and from him, some of his ‘corrected and others written by Dr. Samuel Johnson,’ with anecdotes by M. Green, are in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1787, ii. 757–9, 1041–2, 1157–9). The letters belonged to John Nichols.

[Boswell's Johnson, ed. Napier, i. 236–7; Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. Hill, ii. 401–2; Hawkins's Johnson, pp. 321–3; Gent. Mag. 1755, pp. 47, 333; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 179–80; Works of Williams; information from Rev. H. V. Le Bas, preacher at the Charterhouse.] 