Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 002.djvu/193

 the surface of such fragments of Shining Wood, as I was wont to employ: And though some parts of this large Superficies shined vividly (for the light was usually enough for rotten Wood, inferiour to that of our Fish) yet this great piece being put into a convenient Receiver, was, upon the withdrawing of the Air, deprived of Light, as the smaller ones had been formerly; the returning Air restoring its Light to the one, as it had done to the other.

this is not the chief thing I intended to acquaint you with, That being the success of some Trials, which we made in prosecution of these two neighbouring Experiments.

In the first of these I told you, I had been able to try but for half an hour or a little more, that a shining piece of Wood, deprived in our Engine of Light, would yet retain a disposition to be as it were rekindled upon the fresh access of the Air. Wherefore, though I could have wished to have made a further Trial with the same kind of Bodies, yet being able to procure none, I substituted in their room small pieces of rotten Fish, that shone some of them more faintly, and some of them more vividly, in reference to one another, but none as strongly as some that I could have employed; and having in a very small and clear Receiver so far drawn off the Air, as to make the included Body disappear, we so ordered the matter, that we kept out the Air for about 24 hours; and then allowing the Air to re-enter in a dark place, and late at night, upon its first admittance the Fish regain'd its Light.

is, compar'd with some of my former Observations about Putrefaction, put me upon a Trial, which, though it miscarried, I shall here make mention of, that in case you, who are better furnish'd with Glasses, think it worth while, you may get reiterated by the Society's Operator; considering then, how great an interest Putrefaction hath in the shining of Fishes, and Air in the Phænomena of Putrefaction, I thought it might be somewhat to the purpose, to take a Fish that was, according to the mon