The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-11-15
IMPRISONED FROGS AND TOADS

The imprisonment Of frogs and toads in stone
IL mach more remarkable than that in the trunks
OF trees, even if we believe only modicum Of the
| narratives published on tho subject The state
ments are unMistakable, and are made in al good
faith, that fiogs and soads are occasionally met
with thus imbedded, and that exact impressions
OF their bodies, cores pondlng to their respective
sizes, are all leftin the cavities ofthe stone where
they are found. Chatsworth is credited with hav-
! ing once had 1--WE do not know whether it still
exists) a marble chimney piece with print Of a
! toad in it; there was a Evolutionary account of
| the place and manner in which it was found. The
| Mining Journal contains an account Of discov-
| thyr-Tydvil.
When working at depth of forty-ive feet,
| his mandrel struck into piece of shaie; frog,
large but weak, leaped out and crawled along the
ground, with some difficulty; the eyes were full
| sized, but apparently sightless the mouth
seemed as if permanently closed, and the spine
| was twisted as if it had been compelled 10 adapt
| itself to narrow and lll-shaped space. The
frog, when liberated, grew in size and weight,
but could not be fed; he appeared to breathe
through the skin covering the lower jaw. We
certainly cannot blame Ellis, the miner, for ex-
| hlbiting the prodigy to admring visitors at a
public house.in Aerthyr; and considering the in
tensity OF popular belief on this subject we must
view indugently his inscription 1.-The greatest
wonder Of the world! frog found in stone
| forty feet below the surface Of the earth, where
| it has been living without food for the last five
thousand years!.
The first question is how much of these mar
natives to believe: and the second, how to account
| for so much as We do believe. That frogs live to
| great age, that they are able to endure long
abstinence, that their power Of Information is
| something extraordinary, and that the skin has
| the property ct acting upon the atmosphere in
such way as to fulfill in some degree the func-
tons of the lungs, facts admitted by natural
lists The toad alss, when kept i'll damp place,
can live several months without food of any kind.
Smellie, while cautiously abstaning alike fro n
positive belief and absolute incredulity, recom-
mended to observant men to attend to such a
possible explanation as the following s'In the
rocks there are many chinks as well as assures,
both horizontal and perpendicular, and in old trees
nothing ls more frequent tina holes and vacuities
OF various dimensions. Through these assures
and vacuItles the eggs of toads may accidentally
be conveyed by water, the penetration of which
few substances are capable OF resisting. After
the eggs are Matched, the animals may receive
moisture and small portions Of air through the
crevices Of rocks or the channels Of aged trees
But" he modestly adds, 81 mean not to per-
suade, for cannot satisfy" Mr.. Broderip, the
naturalist, does not admit tie probability of
Of the frogs egg by water. No one doubts that
frogs, toads, snakes and lizards really do issue
occasionally from rock broken in q quarry,
hard stone loosened in well-sinking,
the e0 shae aug in eoy
really solid and impossible to air and moisture.
The late DR.. auckland remarked that "the evil
dence is never perfect to show that the reptiles
were entirely incle sed in solid rock. No exami-
nation is ever made until the reptile is first dis
covered by the breaking of the mass in which it
was contained, and then it is too late to ascer-
tain, without carefully replacing every fragment
land IN no case that have seen reported has
this ever been done), whether or not there was
any hole or crevice by which the animal may
have entered the cavity from which it was ex-
tracted. Without previous examination it is
almost impossible to prove that there was no
such communication.
DR.. auckland, to test the mat er in some de-
gree, made some remarkable experiments. He
caused twelve circular cells or cavities to be cut
provision for an alright glass cover to each CELL
Twelve other cells were cut in block of siidious
Twenty four toads were put into the |
cells, one in each, the covers fastened down air
tight, and the blocks Of stone buried three feet
deep in a garden. They We're left undisturbed |
for twelve months, at the end Of which time the |
cells were opened. All the toads in the sandstone
rock were dead, but most of those in the oolits |
(the cells of which were larger) were still |
some had increased. But as few
of the plates Of glass were found cracked, it was
leemed possible that minute insects might have |
entered. The living toads were left alone for an
)ther twelve months, at the end Of which time
III were dead. Seen through the glass covers,
he poor fellows seemed to be always awake with
'pen eyes. Perhaps they were marveling what
'rlme of theirs had subjected them to sentence
# Two years solitary confinement.
To sum up: the best naturalists now agree
hat, however wonderful the ascertained phe-
.omena really are, frogs and toads cannot live
me year wholly without air, nor probably two
ears wholly without food.