The HORN of the SEA-UNICORNE. Given by Sir Joseph Williamson now President of the Royal-Society. It is an entire one, eight feet long, or about two yards and three quarters. Very beautiful in length, straitness, whiteness, and its spiral Furrows bigger and less, making about seven Rounds from the bottom to the top, or point. At the Basis or bottom, about seven inches round. From thence, for about a foot, it swells a little, and then again grows slenderer, all the way, and so ends in a sharp point. 'Tis also conically hollow at the Basis, for near three quarters of a foot deep.

The same Horn (together with the Fish it self, sometimes above 30 Elns long,) is described by Wormius. (c) (c) Musæum Wor. But I cannot, with him, call it a Tooth. In that, it performeth not the office of a Tooth, but of a Horn. Neither doth it stand as a Tooth, but horizontally. Nor is it fixed in the Mouth, where all Teeth stand, but in the Snout. The reason why he calls it so, is, because it is fastened in the Snout, as Teeth are in the Jaw. See also the Description hereof in Bartholine. (d) (d) Hist. Cent. 4. But in that he makes it to be Gyris Intortum, is not (at least as to this Horn) so clearly expressed: the Horn it self being strait, and not writhen, but only surrounded with spiral Furrows. The same is also transcribed by Terzagi out of Wormius, into Septalius's Musæum.

Of the Virtue hereof, Wormius mentions two Experiments. The one, upon its being given to a Dog, after a Dose of Arsenick: but he expresseth the quantity of neither. The other, upon twelve Grains hereof given after a Drachm of Nux Vomica. Both the Dogs lived; whereas two other Dogs having the same Doses, without the Horn, died. Both experiments are attested by several Physitians of Note.

The credit of these Persons is not doubted. But the question is, Whether these Dogs might not have liv'd without the Horn. As some Dogs that have been bitten by an Adder, have been observ'd to get over their Convulsions, and recover. It is also said in one of the Experiments, that the Dog which liv'd, vomited: and in the other, there is nothing said to the contrary. The question therefore is, Whether many other things, which will cause vomiting, may not do as well, as this so much celebrated Horn?

Whatever it may perform against Poison, it hath, saith Bartholine, been very successfully used by Physitians in Malignant Fevers. As in that, which at Coppenhagen in the years 1652, and 1653. was very brief: and which it carr'd off with very great Sweats. (a) (a) Barthol. Hist. Cent. 4. It was used also by Albertus Kyperus at Leyden in the Year 1655. in the like Case, and with the like success. (b) (b) Ibid. And that the sweating proceeded not meerly from Natures own strength over the Disease, but as she was helped by the use of the Horn; seems probable from what Bartholine further saith, (c)(c) Ibid. That a scruple or ʒß hereof being given in Carduus-Water, or other convenient Liquor, causeth a free and copious sweating, even in those that are not used to sweat, except with much difficulty.

Heretofore, the chief Bishops in Denmark, used to make their Episcopal Staffs of these Horns. (d) (d) Ibid. The Natives of Groenland, and other Places where the Sea-Unicorne is taken, arm the sharp ends of the thickest and longest of these Horns with Iron Beards, and so use them for the wounding and taking of Whales.

The Sea-Unicorne is it self a lesser Whale, and is that Species which the People of Island, where there are many, call Narwhal. The figure which Olaus Magnus gives of the Head, is fictitious.