Worcester daily spy., 1858-09-02

AN EXTRAORDINARY FAcT.-Mr. Joseph
Potts. an intelligent miner, at work on Mon
day, in his room in the Bodiam mines, three
hundred feet below the surface Of the earth,
had thrown down by blast, large mass of
coal, and was engaged in breaking it up to
put in his car, when, from the body of it,
through one of the fractures, leaped out
living frog, beautifully formed and active,
about the size of ones two fingers. This eX-
traordinary curiosity we have now before US,
pert and active q youth OF his species SIX
months old yet we hold him in our hands,
we bend in reverence and almost in awe be
fore this venerable patriarch this almost first
animal existence OF creative power. What
unnumbered cycles of time have rolled away
since he first had form and being. The noun
tains and the hills. and the deep strata of
rocks that form their ribs, have grown by the
slow process of nature, over his prison house.
since he was incarcerated. The valley of the
Mississippi has emerged from the ocean since
his limbs we've formed and had their proper
tions; and if, as geologists calculate, it hes
required six millions of years to form the del
ia of the Mississippi below the bluffs OF Natch-
ez, what must be the age of this petit animal
now in our feeble graspg Can it be possible
that his existence extends back through the
eternity of twelve millions of years and yet
If there be truth in the speculetions of Agas-
siz, he is older than that. What a creature of
an instant was Methuselah compared with
this trail creature what an ephemera is the
oldest patriarch of The forests, whose limbs
have been shaken by the storms of thousand
years, when its age is counted with that of
this little prisoner, who came into the world
when perhaps the sun was young and the
stars had just come forth in the heavens, and
thp Dianpfs hevOpd o1r Sphara v,aro in, obo,e
or their substances were gathering into nebu-
lous clouds. Do we hold in our hands the old
est animal in existence on the face of earth ;
1t must be so. There may be others still
imprisoned as venerable; but none can claim
a remoter origin. How came he in his deep
buried cell According to all received theo
rles, the formation of coal was prior to all an
imal life. He must have been born when the
substances of coal were in a fluid state, and
he sank into it before it became solid, and his
tomb was Theoretically sealed by the processes
of its formation. Had he progenitor? or is
he an original creation: He is beautifully
shaped, and differs from the species of our
day only in longer claws to his feet, which
are without webs, leaving us to infer that he
was not intended for good swimmer.
What Sn Immortality has the vital principle
that has lain dormant from the first ages of
the Worlu III the oody OF TINS little animal.
If life can lust for millions of years in that
frail body, can one doubt the living principle
of the soul and its Immortality Here are,
in the history of mean reptile, themes for
many a sermon; and we advise all to visit it
and contemplate it, and draw the inspiration
which brings us Immediately into the pres
enoe of creative power.
Over the vein of coal in which this little
animal lay embedded, are too other strata OF
coal, separated by solid sand stone of 100 teet
in thickness from the bottom of one, and by
so feet OF like rock between each other Be.
tween the seam, from which the frog came,
and the surface, there are two hundred feet
of solid sand stone and coal, aud about forty
feet of coal, slate and common clay These
are all regular qualifications that must have
required ages beyond the power of human
to compute, to have formed
them. Below them all comes forth living,
breathing, sensitive animal, clothed IN flesh.
with all the organs of his species perfect that
had its existence before the slow processes of
their formation began. EUGnsuitie Journal.