Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 002.djvu/210

 4. A fourth Difference may be this: That wherein a Coal, as it burs, sends forth store of smoak or exhalations; Luminous Wood does not so.

5. A fifth, flowing from the former, is, That whereas a Coal in shining wasts it self at a great rate, Shining Wood does not.

These two unlikenesses I mention together, not only because of their affinity, but because what concerns the Coal in both, will need no proof; and as for what concerns Rotten Wood, it may be verified by an Observation, that I find by my Notes I made in a piece of it Hermetically sealed up in a small clear Glass; where after it had continued luminous some days, I lookt on it in the day-time to perceive, if any store of spirits or other steams had, during all that while, exhaled from the Wood, but could not find any on the inside of the Glass, save that in one place there appeared a kind of Dew, but consisting of such very small drops (if at least their Size were not below that name) that a multitude of them would go to the making up of one ordinary drop. But in pieces of Shining Fish I found the case much otherwise, as was to be expected.

6. The last Difference I shall take notice of betwixt the Bodies hitherto compared, if, That a Quick Coal is actually and vehemently hot; whereas I have not observed Shining Wood to be so much as sensibly lukewarm.

What is said of the Coals heat, being as manifest as its light, I shall need only to make out what relates to the Shining Wood. To assist me wherein, I meet among my Notes that, whose Transcript I shall subjoyn, when I have premis'd, that (if my memory do not deceive me) the piece of Wood to be mentioned was one, that shone so vividly, that waking in the Night some hours before I tryed it, and perceiving, as it lay near me on the Bed, how luminous it was, I was invited to reach out to a place near the Beds-head, where there stood several Books, and, laying the Wood on that which came to hand, I could discern by the light of it, that the Book was an Hebrew Bible, and that of the Page I lighted on, the wrong end was turned upwards: To which tion