not been made acquainted with this fact before, and therefore was obliged to shew my ignorance on the occasion. Dr. Lacassigne kept his residence here, and had his room detached from Mr. Sarpe's house, but in the same garden. It was surrounded with palisadoes of cypress and lined within by orange trees, whose fruit suspended on all hands. The door opened to the river, over the top of the room was an electrical conductor, the point of which was elevated three yards above, but divided at the ridge of the house, and ran down each side of the roof and sides of the wall into the ground. Owing to the extreme heat of the climate the air is more frequently inpregnated with electrical fluid, the clouds more frequently charged and discharged, the explosions louder, and the preparations to ward off the effect produced by it more general than in colder climates. The doctor's apartment was furnished with a table, two or three chairs, two beds, and a handsome library, composed of the Encyclopedia, the works of Voltaire, Rosseau, and a variety of other works, mathematical, astronomical, philosophical, French and English. Knowing that I walked with a stick, the doctor had prepared two, of the young orange tree, and presented them to me.
{335} Feb. 26. Paid Mr. E— a visit and found him still busy in selling off his apples, &c.
March 1. Having a fifteen hundred gallon still consigned to me for sale by Mr. S—, of Pittsburgh, I walked into the country with the doctor to a Mr. Delongua's, a distiller of rum, to see if he would purchase it.
Sunday, March 3, went in company with Mr. Buckley to the Roman church, found it elegantly ornamented, and upon the whole to exceed my most sanguine expectations.[224] The service was conducted in a manner as bespoke the con-*
