90 CORRBSFONDENCE. 



Natural History. It would be occupying too much of your space 

 to make particular mention of them, but I cannot resist describing 

 a few of the things I saw. In a shop in the Strand, nearly oppo- 

 site Chandos-street, there are a number of specimens of copal, with 

 insects ; Moths, Spiders, and Ants, are enclosed within this transpa- 

 rent yellow substance, forming a beautiful contrast to the tombs 

 which usually receive the bodies of all things which have lived and 

 moved. Instead of the gloom which generally surrounds the last 

 habitations of animated beings, here was brightness ; and instead of 

 being loathsome to look upon, they were something to admire and 

 covet. There was one thing that particularly struck me, namely, 

 that the Moths, Spiders, and Ants, although " quietly inurned" in 

 their present magnificent sepulchres for centuries, retained their 

 forms and palpableness, and seem as if they were but the other day 

 doomed to be incarcerated in their present resinous receptacles. 

 How insignificant and bungling seem the vain efforts of man to em- 

 balm and preserve the corpse of some departed friend, by saturating 

 it in bitumen, and by folding it in numerous filaments saturated 

 with essential oils, as compared to this manner of preserving animal 

 l)odies in a transparent, imperishable, and, when polished, elegant 

 substance ! O Nature, thou art profound and perfect, even in what 

 may appear fanciful in thy works ! 



Whilst detained in the Strand for some models I had ordered, I 

 took the opportunity of visiting the Adelaide Gallery. It was about 

 a quarter before two o'clock, the time when the magnetic and elec- 

 tro-magnetic phenomena are exhibited. A very talented gentle- 

 man, whose name I do not know, gave a short lecture on these in- 

 teresting portions of Natural Philosophy. He showed us the de- 

 composition of water by the electro-magnetic agency, and its recom- 

 position by combustion ; and also the immense power imparted to 

 the magnet, to sustain very great weights, whilst a galvanic circle 

 was kept circulating round the copper coils which surrounded it ; 

 and, lastly, the brilliant experiment of inducing a succession of 

 sparks from a large magnet, proving to the senses that there is an 

 identity between electricity, magnetism, and galvanism. But what 

 is particularly wo.th your attention is this fact, that I and many 

 other persons took a shock from the large magnet, and remarked 

 that the sensation was most powerful at the elbow joints, whei-e it 

 seemed to terminate. Now when a shock is received from an elec- 

 trifying machine, whether from a cylinder or plate, it passes through 

 the whole body instantaneously, and the mind is conscious of the 

 phenomena ; but this is not the case with the shock from the elec- 



