PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 59 



plaster of Paris, I presume. He then placed these cases 

 in a l)Ox, — the size of the box is not stated — which also 

 he covered with a thick coat of plaster. On the 8th 

 April, 1774, i.e., al)out three years and two months after, 

 he removed the plaster coverings and found two of the 

 toads alive, — one had died. On the 15th April the 

 survivors having had access to air, and perhaps to food 

 for a week ; he placed the two live toads in a basin of 

 plaster, which he covered with a sealed glass case, so that 

 he might observe their movements. On the 9th May 

 he exhibited this case and its occupants before the 

 members of the Academy. One was still living, the 

 other had died the night preceding. On the 15th April 

 he enclosed in a glass bottle another toad, and buried the 

 bottle, after securely closing it up, and on the 9th May it 

 was found to l)e well, and it croaked when the bottle was 

 shaken. 



You will observe that in these experiments the 

 animals were in a case pervious to the air. and the 

 waste of tissue owing to their compulsory inactivity must 

 have been exceedingly small, and their respiration probably 

 very slow. But the result I think is to show that all those 

 stories which tend to prove that the laws of Nature can 

 be almost indefinitely suspended are utterly unreliable. 

 Nature, as I have said, has its laws, and they cannot be 

 set aside by man or beast without direful or fatal 

 consequences ; for the laws of Nature av-e decreed and 

 directed by a Higher Power. It is in my judgment 

 absolutely impossible for a toad or any other animal to 

 live for three years totally without any supply of moisture 

 or air, and I do not think much of the experiments of 

 M. Herissaint, for they prove nothing as regards the 

 power of any living creatures of a higher or lower order 

 to exist for any lengthened period deprived of those 

 elements which are necessary for that existence. All 

 animals that hibernate must have access to air (some 

 perhaps to food). 



