Toads enclosed in Stone and Wood. 81 



surface had been closed up by stalactitic incrustation after the 

 animal had become too large to make its escape. A similar ex- 

 planation may be offered of the much more probable case of a 

 live toad being entirely surrounded with solid wood. In each 

 case the animal would have continued to increase in bulk so 

 long as the smallest aperture remained by which air and insects 

 could find admission ; it would probably become torpid as soon 

 as this aperture was entirely closed by the accumulation of stal- 

 actite or the growth of wood ; but it still remains to be ascertained 

 how long this state of torpor may continue under total exclu- 

 sion from food, and from external air : and although the experi- 

 ments above recorded shew that life did not extend two years 

 in the case of any one of the individuals which formed the sub- 

 jects of them, yet, for reasons which have been specified, they 

 are not decisive to shew that a state of torpor, or suspended ani- 

 mation, may not be endured for a much longer time by toads 

 that are healthy and well fed up, to the moment when they are 

 finally cut off from food, and from all direct access to atmosphe- 

 ric air. 



The common experiment of burying a toad in a flower-pot 

 povered with a tile, is of no value, unless the cover be carefully 

 luted to the pot, and the hole at the bottom of the pot also 

 closed, so as to exclude all possible access of air, earthworms 

 and insects. I have heard of two or three experiments of this 

 kind, in which these precautions have not been taken, and in 

 which, at the end of a year, the toads have been found alive and 

 well. 



Besides the toads enclosed in stone and wood, four others 

 were placed each in a small basin of plaster of Paris, four inches 

 deep and five inches in diameter, having a cover of the same ma- 

 terial carefully luted round with clay ; these were buried at the 

 same time and in the same place with the blocks of stone, and 

 on being examined at the same time with them in December, 

 1826, two of the toads were dead, the other two alive, but much 

 emaciated. We can only collect from this experiment, that a 

 thin plate of plaster of Paris is permeable to air in a sufficient 

 degree to maintain the life of a toad for thirteen months. 



In the 19th Vol. No. 1, p. 167, of Silliman's American Jour- 

 nal of Science and Arts, David Thomas, Esq. has published some 

 observations on frogs and toads in stone and solid earth, enu- 



