1 84 Popular Delusions in Natural History. [Sess. 



inside one of the blocks by John Jennings, described as " a 

 man of unimpeachable veracity." Mr Thomas then quotes 

 from a letter written by Mr Bough ton, afterwards a member 

 of the Senate : — 



The stone had been marked out for the jamb, and on breaking it to the 

 line it broke through the centre of the cavity, leaving about half in the 

 face of the jamb. The toad, which was represented to be of the small 

 brown kind, fell out, and after jumping two or three times (not more) 

 expired. I passed along a few minutes after, and had the relation from 

 Jennings, but did not see the toad. He said some Irish labourers came 

 along just at that time and took it away with them. Jennings was directed 

 not to work the cavity out, and it stood for years in our counting-room, 

 where you may remember to have seen it. From the cavity to the outer 

 edge of the stone at its nearest part was probably 3 or 4 inches, and was 

 perfectly solid all round. I never doubted the correctness of Jennings' 

 statement. All the circumstances seemed to confirm it. 



What can our sceptics say in the face of this most circumstan- 

 tial account and the unimpeachable veracity of the workman 

 Jennings ? 



Let us take another example. In Stuart's ' Lays of the 

 Deer-Forests ' mention is made of a notice published in the 

 'Globe' of August 17, 1846, of a live toad found in the 

 centre of a block of blackband ironstone in Ayrshire, and 

 the authors then proceed to quote the following account 

 which they received from the manager of the ironworks : — 



On the 31st of July two men, John Black of Little Bigg, Auchenleck, 

 and James M'Kee, of Cumnock, both quarrymen in the employment of 

 Mr M'Turc, ironstone contractor to the Lugar Iron Company, were raising 

 ironstone in an open-cast working in Belton Mill Holm, on the banks of 

 Lugar Water. These men having loosened a block of ironstone of the 

 carboniferous kind, 5 feet or thereabouts in length, and nearly 2 feet in 

 thickness, were in the act of breaking it up when one of the fractures 

 crossing a little hole in the apparently solid stone ; from this hole a live 

 toad crept out and was taken up by M'Kee, who showed it to his neigh- 

 bour and also to about a dozen men working in the quarry. After having 

 satisfied themselves that it was a toad, though small in size, being some- 

 what less than a hazel nut, they let it go, when it leaped off and made its 

 way to a pool of water on the face of the working. On reaching the water, 

 which might be about 4 feet deep, it struck out quite lively, and in a few 

 strokes was out of sight. 



Eecords of this kind, chiefly taken from newspapers, might 

 be multiplied without end were it worth while ; it is indeed 



