Various parts of Spain suffered from epidemic pestilence this year. Don Manuel Antonio Bela, a physician of some eminence, wrote and published a work entitled ‘Una Disertacion sobre los cometas que no causan ni anuncian enfermedades publicas,’ for the purpose of refuting the idea that comets and other meteoric phenomena influence the production of epidemic disease. A comet was noticed this year; and the year following, 1770, was remarkable for the severity of an earthquake which was experienced in the island of St. Domingo. There was also an eruption of Vesuvius, and deadly pestilence raged in many parts of Europe, carrying off great numbers. The mortality from murrain at this period was great among cattle in Sardinia, Holland, Flanders, &c. In Poland and Russia alone upwards of 20,000 persons died of famine and disease: it is recorded that 168,000 fell victims to a dire pestilence which prevailed in Bohemia. In the city of Constantinople, during this year, 1000 bodies were buried daily for some weeks. During this and the following year, 1771, a singular epidemic destroyed the foxes in the United States of America. Tertian fevers of a malignant type again broke out in the city of Carthagena, and the persons residing in the convent of St. Diego again suffered from pestilence, which continued the two following years: out of fifty-three padres of the convent, one only escaped. Puerperal fever was fatally epidemic at Vienna. A.D. 1771, there was an inundation in the North of England, and there occurred also an eruption of Vesuvius. A.D. 1772, strange phenomena were observed with regard to the body of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, which had been buried 345 years in the abbey at St. Edmund’s Bury; when the leaden coffin was opened, the flesh, hair, and toe and finger nails appeared perfect and sound, as though he had not been interred many hours. On an incision being made on the breast, the flesh cut as firm as in a living subject, and there was even an appearance of blood. A similar phenomenon was observed A.D. 1494, when the body of one Alice Hackney, which had been interred 175 years, was accidentally dug up in the churchyard of St. Mary’s Hill, London: the skin was whole, and the joints of the arms, legs, &c. were pliable, the parts exhibiting a natural appearance, as though she were but recently dead. A dreadful hurricane happened this year in the Caribbean Islands. Plague raged at Moscow, and, it is stated, carried off 133,299 persons within eighteen months. Epidemic catarrh and measles prevailed in the United States of America; small-pox was rife in Scotland; and the pestilence, which was still raging in Carthagena, extended to other provinces of Spain. Plague carried off great numbers in Bassora; 80,000 persons are said to have fallen victims to the frightful pestilence; in short, famine and disease about this time, induced by long and continued drought and excessive heat, destroyed an incredible number of lives in the