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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



1,200 feet, before he can reach his cottage, 

 where he naturally looks for his food and 

 sleep. This climbing of the ladders is per- 

 formed hastily, almost as a gymnastic feat, 

 and throws a heavy strain (amounting to 

 from one-eighth to one-quarter of the whole 

 day's work) upon the muscles of the tired 

 miner, during the half-hour or hour that con- 

 cludes his daily toil. A flesh-fed man (as a 

 red Indian) would run up the ladders like a 

 cat, using the stores of force already in re- 

 serve in his blood ; but the Cornish miner, 

 who is fed chiefly upon dough and fat, finds 

 himself greatly distressed by the climbing of 

 the ladders more so, indeed, than by the 

 slower labor of quarrying in the mine. His 

 heart, over-stimulated by the rapid exer- 

 tion of muscular work, beats more and 

 more quickly in its efforts to oxidate the 

 blood in the lungs, and so supply the force 

 required. Local congestion of the lung it- 

 self frequently follows, and lays the founda- 

 tion for the affection so graphically though 

 sadly described by the miner at forty years 

 of age, who tells you that his other works 

 are very good, but that he is ' beginning to 

 leak in the valves ' Were I a Cornish miner, 

 and able to afford the luxury, I should train 

 myself for the ' ladder-feat ' by dining on 

 half a pound of rare beefsteak and a glass 

 of ale from one to two hours before com- 

 mencing the ascent." 



Poisonous Volcanic Gases. During a 

 volcanic eruption on the little island of San 

 Jorge, one of the Azores, in the year 1808, 

 vaporous clouds were seen to roll down the 

 sides of the mountain, and to move along 

 the valley. Wherever they passed, plants 

 and animals wilted and perished instanta- 

 neously. From this asphyxiating action, 

 as also from their downward movement on 

 the mountain-side and toward the sea, we 

 may conclude that they consisted chiefly of 

 some dense, deleterious gas, most probably 

 carbonic acid. Their opacity is to be at- 

 tributed to the presence of watery vapor, 

 and their reddish color to the presence of 

 fine volcanic dust. Finally, their injurious 

 action on plants was doubtless owing to the 

 presence of chlorhydric and sulphurous acid. 

 Similar phenomena have been observed 

 on occasion of other volcanic outbreaks, 

 but nowhere so marked as in the case of 



San Jorge. In 1866, for instance, the vol- 

 cano of Santorin emitted smoke charged 

 with acid, which produced on plants effects 

 similar to those observed at San Jorge in 

 1808. 



A writer in the Revue Scieniijique is of 

 the opinion that the facts above stated 

 give the solution of some of the problems 

 raised by the exhumations at Pompeii. The 

 strange posture of skeletons found in the 

 streets of that town is very difficult to ac- 

 count for, if we insist on finding analogies 

 with phenomena observed in modern erup- 

 tions of Vesuvius. A shower of ashes, how- 

 ever heavy, however charged with humidity, 

 could never have thrown down and choked 

 a strong man like the one who met his 

 death while making his escape, in company 

 with his two daughters, along one of the 

 public roads. They must have inhaled a 

 poisonous gas of some kind, which caused 

 them to perish in fearful agony. This gas 

 would not lie in a layer of equal thickness : 

 in some places it might have a greater depth 

 than in others. Hence, while some of the 

 inhabitants would perish, the remainder 

 would escape. 



It is very probable that the eruption in 

 the year *79 was accompanied with local 

 emissions of carbonic acid, springing from 

 points remote from the crater. In all vol- 

 canic regions, says the author, there are 

 localities where, even when the volcano is 

 inactive, carbonic acid exists in the atmos- 

 phere, in quantities sufficient to produce 

 asphyxia: and the neighborhood of Vesu- 

 vius is particularly noted for the number of 

 such localities. During an eruption, the 

 amount of the gas given out is usually in- 

 creased, and wells, ditches, quarries, etc., 

 are filled with carbonic acid. It is some- 

 times dangerous to enter cavities in the 

 rocks on the coast when a fresh breeze does 

 not keep them free of the poisonous gas. 

 In 1861 Ste. -Claire Deville came near meet- 

 ing his death by entering one of these cavi- 

 ties for a few moments. The following 

 week he and the author barely escaped 

 being asphyxiated in the bed of a great 

 quarry, which they had previously visited 

 many a time with impunity. 



A Relic of Ancient Etrnrian Art. An 



antiquarian discovery of very considerable 



