Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1844-05-10
MISCELLANEOUS.

GIVE find the following In the VT Chronicle
On the one hand it is plausible, on the other the
authority for it is anonymous. The reader may be-
leve and wonder if he or she chooses to do so, but
we are inclined to set it down as a clever hoax
XTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY.
The following is an extract of a letter from
young American now travelling in Europe, which
we copy from the Baton Rouge (La.) Gazette:
"Professor Won Grusselbach, of Stockholm, has
very lately brought to state of perfection the art
of producing torpor of the whole system, by the
application of cold of different degrees of intensity,
proceeding from less to greater, so as to cause
the human body to become perfectly torpid without
permanent injury to any organ or tissue OF the frame
In this state they may remain for great number of
years, and again, after sleep ofages, be awakened
to existence, as fresh and blooming as they were
when they first sunk into their frigorhc slumber.
The attention of the learned professor was first
led to the subject by finding toad enclosed in
solid fragment of cacarious rock ten feet in diam
eter, which when taken out, showed unequivocal
signs Of life but it was supposed that the concus-
ion caused by blasting the rock occasloned its death
in a few hours after. The opinion Of Baron Gruit-
hizen, who is Geologist to the King of Sweden, was
that it must have been in that situation for at least
seven thousand years ; and his calculations were
drawn from the different layers of strata by which it
was surrounded. From this hint, the professor pro-
ceeded to make experiments and after painful
and laborious course of experiments for the last
twenty nine years of his life he has at last succeed
ed in perfecting his great discovery. No less than
sixty thousand reptiles shell fish, &c. were expert
mented on before he tried the human subject The
process is not entirely laid before the public as yet
but had the honor, in company with Il friend, OF
visiting the professor.
shall give slight description ofone ofthe out
err rooms containing Of his preparations. Pre-
vious to entering, were furnished with an India
rubber bag, to which attached a mask with
glass eyes This was put on to prevent the tenn
perature of the room from being yQried,the slight
est degree by our breathing. 1t was circular room,
lighted from the top by the suns rays, from which
the heat was entirely dsengaged by its passage
through its glass &C. colored by the oxide of cop
per, "a late discovery and very valuable to the
professor.) The room is shelved all around, and
contains nearly one thousand specimens of animals
&c. One was Swedish girl, aged, from appear
ance, about nineteen years she was consigned to
the professor by order of the Government to expert
ment upon having been found guilty of numbering
her child. With the slight paleness, she appeared
as if asleep, although she has been in state ofcom-
plete torpor for two years. He intends, he says to
world of the soundness Of his wonderful discovery
The professor, to crafty u.s. took small snake out
of his cabinet into another room, and although II
appeared to us to be perfectly dead and rigid as
marble, by application of a mixture of cayenne pep
per and brandy it showed signs oflte, and was ap
parently as active ever it was in few minutes
although the professor assured us 1t had been in Q
state oftorpor for six years.