ference gives the precise quantity of alcohol or pure spirit contained in the liquor. Thus, if eight lines of phlegm are found remaining, this being the half of the 16 lines of the original filling, it is plain, that the liquor contained one half spirit, or was something below proof. If only four lines remained, it was nearly double proof, or of a middle nature betwixt alcohol and common proof-spirit.

DEFLECTION of the Rays of Light, a property which Doctor Hook observed in 1675, and read an account of before the Royal Society, March 18, the same year. He says he found it different both from reflection and refraction, and that it was made towards the surface of the opaque body, perpendicularly. This is the same property which Sir Isaac Newton calls inflection. See the article Inflection.