different opinion. That some of it is absorbed I am convinced; or why is not rain, or any other pure water, equally efficacious, applied to scrophulous glands?

Before the subject be entirely quitted, the writer wishes to submit it to the experience of the medical world, to determine how far this mode of absorption may be usefully applied in a variety of cases requiring the various baths which nature has, probably for human ills, provided in different parts of the world, and which are too frequently, from some circumstance or other, not within the reach or power of those to whom they would no doubt be of great service; and to add that, in more than one instance, he has applied, with the above saline solution, some few drops of the tinct. ferri mur. he thinks with some success in some cases where chalybeates seemed to promise relief. The Materia Medica will readily supply, through the medium of Chemistry, a fund of powerful topics to the ingenious physican.

1791, Nov.

Yours, &c.

BENEVOLUS.

LXXXV. Sufferings of Lieut. George Spearing, in a Coal Pit, Greenwich Hospital, Aug. 1, 1793.

ON Wednesday, September 13, 1769, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, I went into a little wood called Northwoodside, (situated between two and three miles to the N. W. of Glasgow,) with a design to gather a few hazelnuts. I think that I could not have been in the wood more than a quarter of an hour, nor have gathered more than ten nuts, before I unfortunately fell into an old coal-pit, exactly seventeen yards deep, which had been made through a solid rock. I was some little time insensible. Upon recovering my recollection, I found myself sitting (nearly as a tailor does at his work,) the blood flowing pretty fast from my mouth; and I thought that I had broken a blood vessel, and consequently had not long to live; but, to my great comfort, I soon discovered that the blood proceeded from a wound in my tongue, which I suppose 1 had bitten in my fall. Looking at my watch (it was ten minutes past four,) and getting up, I surveyed my limbs, and to my inexpressible joy found that not one was broken. I was soon reconciled to my situation, having from my childhood thought that something very extraordinary was to happen to me in

the course of my life; and I had not the least doubt of being relieved in the morning; for, the wood being but small, and situated near a populous city, it is much frequented, especially in the nutting season, and there are several foot paths leading through it.

Night now approached, when it began to rain, not in gentle showers, but in torrents of water, such as is generally experienced at the autumnal equinox. The pit I had fallen into was about five feet in diameter; but, not having been worked for several years, the subterranean passages were choked up, so that I was exposed to the rain, which conti nued, with very small intermissions, till the day of my release; and, indeed, in a very short time, I was completely wet through. In this comfortless condition I endeavoured to take some repose. A forked stick that I found in the pit, and which I placed diagonally to the side of it, served alternately to support my head as a pillow, or my body occasionally, which was much bruised; but, in the whole time I remained here, I do not think I ever slept one hour together. Having passed a very disagreeable and tedious night, I was somewhat cheared with the appearance of day. light, and the melody of a robin-redbreast that had perched directly over the mouth of the pit; and this pretty little warbler continued to visit my quarters every morning dur ing my confinement; which I construed into a happy omen of my future deliverance; and I sincerely believe the trust I had in Providence, and the company of this little bird, contributed much to that serenity of mind I constantly enjoyed to the last. At the distance of about a hundred yards, in a direct line from the pit, there was a water-mill. The miller's house was near to me, and the road to the mill was still nearer. I could frequently hear the horses going this road to and from the mill; frequently I heard human voices; and I could distinctly hear the ducks and hens about the mill. I made the best use of my voice on every occasion; but it was to no manner of purpose; for, the wind, which was constantly high, blew in a line from the mill to the pit, which easily accounts for what I heard; and, at the same time, my voice was carried the contrary way. I cannot say 1 suffered much from hunger. After two or three days that appetite ceased; but my thirst was intolerable; and, though it almost constantly rained, yet I could not till the third or fourth day preserve a drop of it, as the earth at the bottom of the pit sucked it up as fast as it ran down. In this distress I sucked my clothes; but from them I could extract but little moisture. The shock I received in the fall,

together with the dislocation of one of my ribs, kept me, I imagine, in a continual fever; I cannot otherwise account for my suffering so much more from thirst than I did from hunger. At last I discovered the thigh-bone of a bull (which, I afterwards heard, had fallen into the pit about eighteen years before me,) almost covered with the earth. I dug it up; and the large end of it left a cavity that, I suppose, might contain a quart. This the water gradually drained into, but so very slowly, that it was a considerable time before I could dip a nut-shell full at a time; which I emptied into the palm of my hand, and so drank it. The water now began to increase pretty fast, so that I was glad to enlarge my reservoir, insomuch that, on the 4th or 5th day, I had a sufficient supply; and this water was certainly the preservation of my life.

At the bottom of the pit there were great quantities of reptiles, such as frogs, toads, large black snails, or slugs, &c. These noxious creatures would frequently crawl about me, and often got into my reservoir; nevertheless, I thought it the sweetest water I had ever tasted; and at this distance of time the remembrance of it is so sweet, that, were it now possible to obtain any of it, I am sure I could swallow it with avidity. I have frequently taken both frogs and toads out of my neck, where, I suppose, they took shelter while I slept. The toads I always destroyed, but the frogs I carefully preserved, as I did not know but I might be under the necessity of eating them, which I should not have scrupled to have done had I been very hungry.

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Saturday, the 16th, there fell but little rain, and I had the satisfaction to hear the voices of some boys in the wood. Immediately I called out with all my might, but it was all in vain, though I afterwards learned that they actually heard me; but, being prepossessed with an idle story of a wild man being in the wood, they ran away affrighted.

Sunday, the 17th, was my birth-day, when I completed my forty-first year; and I think it was the next day that some of my acquaintance, having accidentally heard that I had gone the way I did, sent two or three porters out purposely to search the pits for me. These men went to the

miller's house, and made inquiry for me; but, on account of the very great rain at the time, they never entered the wood, but cruelly returned to their employers, telling them they had searched the pits, and that I was not to be found. Many people in my dismal situation would, no doubt, have died with despair; but, I thank God, I enjoyed a perfect serenity of mind; so much so, that in the Tuesday after,

noon, and when I had been six nights in the pit, I very composedly (by way of amusement) combed my wig on my knee, humming a tune,and thinking of Archer in the "Beaux Stratagem."

At length, the morning, September 20, the happy morning for my deliverance, came; a day that, while my memory lasts, I will always celebrate with gratitude to heaven! Through the brambles and bushes that covered the mouth of the pit, I could discover the sun shining bright, and my pretty warbler was chaunting his melodious strains, when my attention was roused by a confused noise of human voices, which seemed to be approaching fast towards the pit; immediately I called out, and most agreeably surprised several of my acquaintance, who were in search of me. Many of them are still living in Glasgow; and it is not long since I had the very great satisfaction of entertaining one of them at my apartments. They told me that they had not the most distant hope of finding me alive; but wished to give my body a decent burial, should they be so fortunate as to find it. As soon as they heard my voice, they all ran towards the pit, and I could distinguish a well-known voice exclaim," Good God! he is still living!" Another of them, though a very honest North-Briton, betwixt his surprise and joy, could not help asking me, in the Hibernian stile, " if I were still living?" I told him "I was, and hearty too;" and then gave them particular directions how to proceed in getting me out. Fortunately at that juncture a collier, from a working pit in the neighbourhood, was passing along the road, and, hearing an unusual noise in the wood, his curiosity prompted him to learn the occasion. By his assistance, and a rope from the mill, I was soon safely landed on terra firma. The miller's wife had very kindly brought some milk warm from the cow; but, on my coming into the fresh air, I grew rather faint, and could not taste it. Need I be ashamed to acknowledge, that the first dictates of my heart prompted me to fall on my knees, and ejaculate a silent thanksgiving to the God of my deliverance; since, at this distant time, I never think of it but the tear of gratitude starts from my

eye.

Every morning while I was in the pit I tied a knot in the. corner of my handkerchief, supposing that, if I died there, and my body should be afterwards found, the number of knots would certify how many days I had lived. Almost the first question my friends asked me was, how long I had been in the pit? Immediately I drew my handkerchief from my pocket, and bade them count the knots. They found seven, the exact number of nights I had been there. We

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now hasted out of the wood. I could walk without support; but that was not allowed, each person present striving to show me how much they were rejoiced that they had found me alive and so well. They led me to the miller's house, where a great number of people were collected to see me. A gentleman, who had a country house just by, very kindly, at my request, sent for a glass of white wine. I ordered a piece of bread to be toasted, which I soaked in the wine, and ate. I now desired the miller's wife to make me up a bed, fondly thinking that nothing more was wanting than a little refreshing sleep to terminate my misfortune. But, alas! I was still to undergo greater sufferings than I had yet endured. By the almost continual rains, together with the cold damp arising from the wet ground on which I lay, and not being able to take the least exercise to keep up a proper circulation of the blood, my legs were much swelled and benumbed. Some of my friends observing this, proposed to send to Glasgow for medical advice. I at first declined it, and happy had it been for me if I had pursued my own inclinations; but, unfortunately for me, a physician and a surgeon were employed, both of them ignorant of what ought to have been done. Instead of ordering my legs into cold water, or rubbing them with a coarse towel, to bring on a gradual circulation, they applied hot bricks and large poultices to my feet. This, by expanding the blood-vessels too suddenly, put me to much greater torture than I ever endured in my life, and not only prevented my enjoying that refreshipg sleep I so much wanted, but actually produced a mortification in both my feet. I do not mean, by relating this circumstance, to reflect on the faculty in general at Glasgow; for, I was afterwards attended by gentlemen who are an honour to the profession. The same method was pursued for several days, without even giving me the bark till I mentioned it myself. This happily stopt the progress of the mortification, which the doctors did not know had taken place till the miller's wife shewed them a black spot, about as broad as a shilling, at the bottom of my left heel. In a day or two more the whole skin, together with all the nails of my left foot, and three from my right foot, came off like the fingers of a glove.

Opposite the river on which the mill stood there was a bleach-field. It is customary for the watchman in the night to blow a horn to frighten thieves. This I frequently heard when I was in the pit; and very often when I was in a sound sleep at the miller's, I have been awakened by it in the greatest horrors, still thinking myself in the pit; so that, in fact, I suffered as much by imagination as from reality,