1824.] 
that they-melt their metals in small 
erucibles, which they make from the 
dome of clay which ihe commop ant 
ejects and attempers, for throwing olf 
the rains, which otherwise would pene- 
trate and drown their nest, situated in 
the centre of the hillock which these 
industrious insects throw up. That 
ants peculiarly infest and disfigure the 
surface of such pastures only as have 
a substratum of clay, was one of the 
many results, interesting to rural eco- 
nomy, of the.elaborate ‘‘ Geological 
Survey.of England,” which our meri- 
torious, yet shamefully - neglected, 
countryman, Mr. William Smith made, 
soon after 1792; and the fact was, by 
one of his pupils, published more than 
twelve years ago, that certain strips of 
ant-hilly pastures stretch across Hng- 
land from south-west. to north-east, 
almost uninterruptedly, whicly conspi- 
cuously point out the range of the crop 
or basset of particular strata of clay. 
Yet we have not heard, that any one 
has since examined the clays, of these 
ant-hill tops, in order to discover whe- 
ther, iz the nature of the subficial clay 
of these pastures, or through the cla- 
boration by the ants, pila the ejected 
Medical Report. 
555 
clay has undergone, there resides any 
valuable property, like the infusibility 
above mentioned. The English far- 
mers ofthese soils know, to their cost, © 
that a peculiar dwarf thistle, wild 
thyme, and a few other small and 
worthless plants, are all the herbage: 
which will grow on the tops of their 
ant-hills, except after long periods 
since the ants perished. 
Two Meteorolites \ately fell near 
Futtepore, in the East Indies; Mr. R. 
TYTLER, who gave an account thereof 
in alate Calentta Journal, describes 
one of these stones as approachiag in 
external shape to “‘ an irregular hex- 
agon;” thereby clearly, as we think, 
indicating it to be a fragment, con- 
trary to the opinion which he mentions 
concerning it. The same writer is not 
less incorrect, in referring these and 
other meteoric stones to volcanic ejec- 
tions, founded on the mistaken idea. 
that stones of the true meteorie cha- 
racter are ejécied from Vesuvius, and 
are found scaitered in great numbers 
on its sides. ‘The theory which consi-_ 
ders meteorolites as ejections from 
lunar volcanos is in all its parts fanci- 
ful and untrac. 
LS 
MEDICAL REPORT. 
Report of Diseases.and Casvuatits oceurring inthe public and private Practice 
of the Physician who has the care of the Western District of the City Dispensary, 
——=__—_ 
Witz a view of forcibly recommending 
* the promised advantages of the new 
instrument proposed for causing resuscita- 
tion, an allusion has been made, by one 
of the first medical authoritics in the 
country, to the torpor induced from taking 
a poisinous dose of opium, and other 
narcotic drugs; this torpid state inter- 
fering with the power of swallowing, and 
thus rendering the use of the instrument 
especially applicable. Against this novel 
expedient for causing vomiting, the writer 
has nothing to advance. He would say of 
it, as of the French “stethoscope, Valeat 
quantum valere possii ; but it ought to bein 
the recollection of every one, that an 
available mode of relief and probable 
restoration, requiring neither tact in the 
operation, nor particular condition of pa- 
tienf, is always at hand; and that a tree 
dashing of cold water over the surface of 
the body, especially, the face and chest, 
ought never to be omitted amongst. the 
measures for endeavouring 10 counteract 
the death-like and frequently-fatal ‘stupor 
following the rcevption into the stomach of 
the narcotic paisons, In the general way, 
simplicity and efficacy are concomitants ; 
aud how melauoholy to reflect, that sucha 
life as the late Primate of Treland was 
probably sacrificed to ignorance of the 
virtues residing in a pail of cold water, 
which any single one of the anxious at- 
tendants might as easily have applied, 
as the most sagacious adept in toxological 
lore! The writer believes that his friend 
Mr. Wray was the first to suggest and 
adopt the plan of treatment now adverted 
to, which has since, by others, been eim- 
ployed with manifest and manifold ‘ad- 
vantage. 
A little patient has just been visited, who 
is embued with scrofulons disorder to a 
dreadful extent, and who, according to 
the statement of its parents, was free from 
all manifestation of disease, until inocu- 
lated tor the small-pox. Had the matter 
introduced into the system been the vac- 
cine instead of the variolous virus, how 
loud, in the present instance, would be the 
lamentations and regrets of the enemy- to 
cow-pox, ‘The fact is, that both one and 
the*other will frequently rouse up into ac- 
tion and energy otherwise latent or feeble 
tendencies ; but thut, of course, is the most 
likely to do so which is possessed of the 
greatest virulence; and, that the small-pox 
matter is more powerful in exciting com- 
motion 
