456 Intelligefice and Miscellatieous Articles. 



so many of these huge animals become imbedded in this narrow space ? 

 Questions more easily asked than answered. My first conjecture, 

 before seeing the place, was that they had been mired in attempting 

 to reach a spring or lick ; but the small extent and shallowness of the 

 basin, and the gradual descent and character of its bottom, (which, as 

 far as has been examined, is perfectly solid, and like much of the 

 ground around, closely paved with rolled stones of gneiss and lime- 

 stone, generally six or eight inches in diameter,) all forbid such a 

 supposition. It is possible that they may have been swept there by 

 a deluge, which, from the configuration of the surrounding country, 

 would, as it subsided, sweep through the larger depression, with a 

 current to the east, and form an eddy through this one to the west. 

 The whole depression has, in form, a close resemblance to such as 

 we see formed on a smaller scale in the sand along the Delaware. 

 But on the other hand, the number found together, most of them in 

 a standing position, would seem rather to indicate that they had been 

 overwhelmed in one of their native haunts, by some sudden cata- 

 strophe ; and some circumstances seem to favour the supposition that 

 this could not have been at a very remote period. This little basin 

 receives the drainage of some fifteen acres of land, and seems to have 

 had a considerable growth of grass and marsh plants around it. 

 Under such circumstances, it would seem that the accumulation of 

 vegetable matter indicates no very great antiquity. The holes were 

 so fiUed with water that I could not ascertain whether the deposit 

 below the sand showed anything like stratification, but as far as I 

 could judge from what was thrown out, its character was pretty uni- 

 form throughout, exhibiting the appearance of a marsh much fre- 

 quented by animals, which had trampled fragments of its plants all 

 through it. I regretted very much that my knowledge was not suf- 

 ficient to determine the species of the plants of which so many por- 

 tions remain, but I thought I recognised some which are now growing 

 in the neighbouring marshes, such as flags, cattails, &c. I hope, 

 however, that you or some of your scientific friends will visit the 

 place, and obtain more accurate information than I am competent to 

 give." 



ON STANNIC ACID. BY M. FREMY. 



The author remarks that chemists have long considered the second 

 degree of combination of tin with oxygen as a base susceptible of 

 combining with acids to form salts : it is also well known that Guy- 

 ton Morveau proposed to give this substance the name of stannic acid, 

 in order to explain its solubility in the alkalies. M. Chevreul proved 

 that it is a true acid, by showing that it reacted upon campeachy 

 wood like an acid, whilst other metallic oxides, and even protoxide of 

 tin, acted in this case like bases : the subject has since been consi- 

 dered by Berzelius and Gay-Lussac, and in 1835 Graham considered 

 this peroxide as a base capable of combining with variable propor- 

 tions of water, and forming with them different salts. 



In the opinion of M. Fremy, peroxide of tin is in all cases to be 



