REPTILES AND SNAKE-STONES. 15 



chemical examination, which resulted in the professor 

 giving his opinion that it was a piece of charred bone 

 which had been filled with blood, perhaps several 

 times, and then carefully charred again. The ash 

 was almost entirely composed of phosphate of lime. 



Captain Napier mentions an instance of the effi- 

 cacy of the stone. One of the soldiers having been 

 bitten by a scorpion, he says, " I applied the stone 

 to the puncture ; it adhered immediately, and dur- 

 ing the eight minutes that it remained on, the 

 patient by degrees became easier, the pain diminish- 

 ing gradually from the shoulder downwards until it 

 appeared entirely confined to the immediate vicinity 

 of the wound. I then removed the stone ; on 

 putting it into a cup of water, numbers of small air- 

 bubbles rose to the surface. In a short time the 

 man ceased to suffer any inconvenience from the 

 accident."* 



Who will deny the evidence of such facts, simply 

 because they cannot understand them? Mr. E. 

 Xewman remarks very pertinently on this same 

 question : — " I have often been astonished at the 

 ridicule thrown over facts that we cannot under- 

 stand. Men of learning who laugh at a phenomenon 

 they have not seen, always remind me of giggling 

 girls who titter when they hear two persons speak 



* Gosse's " Romance of Natural History." 



