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The Royal Society: Science in the Making

Correspondence Explorer

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Showing 13 letters from 1712–1724

13 letters from Cotton Mather; 0 letters from John Woodward

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Discussing Woodward's paper about the natural history of the earth; discussing 'Biblica Americana'; discussing evidence for giants

Reference number: EL/M2/21

Discussing American plants and their cures

Reference number: EL/M2/22

Discussing birds ('season birds' and fowl) in America; concerning the distance of the Moon from the Earth

Reference number: EL/M2/23

Discussing some American curiosities and 'strange antipathies' - the force of imagination; transcribes a letter from Zechariah Walker about peas; details of cases with people having stones in their bodies

Reference number: EL/M2/24

Concerning 'monsters' and about a 'mole' (mass of abnormal tissue) in the uterus

Reference number: EL/M2/25

Concerning people with ailments who had cures communicated to them through their dreams

Reference number: EL/M2/26

Discussing what wounds are regarded as mortal; concerning curiosities relating to the head (in Latin); concerning a case of woman with dropsy who, upon her post-mortem, was found to have no intestines; another case of a woman who became hydropical and voided 12 gallons of water

Reference number: EL/M2/27

Concerning 'Biblica Americana', giants, plants of America, power of imagination, cures of several wounds judged mortal, about Native Americans division of time, unusual rainbows and mock suns (parhelia), about apparitions, about rattlesnakes, effects of thunder and lightning, earthquakes, hurricanes, concerning ancient remains at Ammuskeag above the falls of Merimack river where Native Americans hide their provisions; concerning rocks at Taunton by Tiding river, cases of longevity and about calculating the descendants of Adam Referring to Mather's letters EL/M2/21 to EL/M2/33

Reference number: EL/M2/34
1724

Account about an 'amphisbaena' (a serpent with two heads) which was killed in Newbury, America; gives references to this animal in ancient texts

Reference number: EL/M2/47

Details of a storm and high tide which occurred on 24 February 1723

Reference number: EL/M2/49

Discussing 'De Arte Combinatoria' and disbelief at its computation of different types of soils; discovery of a new type of black soil at Woodstock outside Boston which became white after a hedge planted in this soil caught fire

Reference number: EL/M2/51

Concerning a woman with stones in her abdomen; details of the wife of Joseph Meader who suffered from 'twisting of the gut' and told by her physician to swallow some lead bullets, which punctured the skin under the navel

Reference number: EL/M2/53

Observations of teeth with details of a man who had a 'white, sharp, continued edge' along his jaws instead of teeth

Reference number: EL/M2/55