Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 001.djvu/186

 of many both familiar and abstruse Phænomena of Nature; but also, upon the score of its Practical use, since the Propositions, it teaches, may be of great importance to Navigation, and to those that inquire into the Magnitudes and Gravities of Bodies, as also to them, that deal in Salt-works: Besides, that the Hydrostaticks may be made divers waies serviceable to Chymists, as the Author intimates, and intends to make manifest, upon several occasions, in his yet unpublisht part of the Usefulness of Natural and Experimental Philosophy.

These Propositions are shut up by two important Appendixes, whereof the one contains an Answer to seven Objections by a late learned Writer, to evince, that the upper parts of water press not upon the lower; the other, solves that difficult problem, why Urinators or Divers, and others, who descend to the bottom of the Sea, are not oppressed with the weight of the incumbent water? where, among other solutions, that is examined, which occurs in a printed Letter of Monsieur Des Cartes, but is found unsatisfactory.

II. Nicolas Stenonis de Musculis & Glandulis Observationum specimen; cum duabus Epistolis Anatomicis. In the specimen it self, the Author, having described in general, both the Structure and the Function of the Muscles, applies that description to the Heart, to demonstrate that that is also a true Muscle: Observing; first, that in the substance of the Heart there appears nothing but Arteries, Veins, Nerves, Fibres, Membrans; that that, & nothing else is found in a Muscle; affirming withall, that which is commonly taught of the Muscles, and particularly of the Heart's Parenchyma, as distinct from Fibres, is due, not to the Senses, but the Wit of Anatomists: so that he will not have the Heart made up of a substance peculiar to it self; nor considered as the principle of Innate heat, or of Sanguifcation, or of vital spirits. He observes next, that the Heart performs the like operation with the Muscles, to wit, to contract the Flesh; which action how it can have a different cause from that of the Contraction made in the Muscles, where there is so great a parity and agreement in the Vessels, he sees not. And as for the Phænomena, that occur, of the Motion of the Heart, he undertakes to explicate them all, from the Ductus or Position of the Fibres; but refers for the performance of this undertaking to another Treatise, he intends to publish.

As to his Observations about Glanduls, he affirms, that he has been the First that has discover'd that Vessel, which by him is call'd Rh