230. Geology, Mineralogy, Scenery, ec. 
_at other times they were covered by a membrane like 
a scabbard, only they were drawn back, so that the 
sheathing membrane formed only a slight protuberance on 
each side of the upper jaw. If irritated, he flattened his 
head, threw it back, opened his mouth wide, and instantly 
the fatal fangs were shot out of their sheaths, like a spring 
dagger, and he darted on his object. 
After his death I examined the fangs; they were shaped like 
a sickle—a dutt led from the reservoir of poison at the bot- 
tom of the tooth, quite through its whole length and termi- 
nated just by the point, which was exceedingly sharp. Thus 
the fang is darted out at the will of the animal—it makes 
the puncture at the instant, and, simultaneously, the poison 
flows through the duct and is deposited in the very bottom 
wound. As this rarely fails to touch a blood vessel. 
the venom is thus instantly infused into the system, and 
without delay commences the march of death through ev- 
ery vein and artery. al a 
These facts, I am sensible, are not new, but they are not 
often related by eye witnesses, and nothing regarding the his- 
tory of this tremendous animal can fail to be interesting.— 
How happy is it, that the poison of the rattle-snake, is not 
conjoined with the size of the Boa-constrictor, and with the 
speed of the antelope ! 
te Ride to Woodbury. 
: From the Mine-hill, through Roxbury, to the’vicinity of 
Woodbury, eight or nine miles, the country was an uninter- 
rupted succession of high hills, and deep vallies—not moun- 
tainous, but forming vast curves, and causing the face of 
following the ae direction and stratification of the coun- 
_ Near Woodbury the rocks presented some tour- 
malins. ’ 
On reaching the top of a high hill, all of a sudden in @ 
valley stretching North and South for a mile or two, Wood- 
bury appears, with a handsome, well built street,and furnish- 
ed with three churches, with spires,—two of them new an¢ 
handsome. For one ef these churches, it seems the 
