288 On Matting made from the Typha latifolia. 
sicians equally worthy of credit, may be owing in a great measure 
to different manners of operating ; some in fact contenting them- 
selves with isolating the patient, and placing him in communica- 
tion with the conductor of the machine, while others have regu- 
larly introduced the fluid into the suffering part by means of dis- 
charges more or less violent. But without saying more on this 
point at present, let us attend to the following fact, which we 
extract from one of the scientific journals published in America. 
M. Samuel Leffers, of Carteret County, in North Carolina, 
had been seized with a paralytic affection which fixed itself on 
the face, and principally on the eyes. As he was walking in his 
chamber, a flash of lightning struck him down senseless ; he came 
to himself at the end of twenty minutes, but he did not recover 
perfectly the use of his legs for the rest of the day and night. The 
next day he found himself quite recovered, and he sat down to 
write to one of his friends an account of what had happened to 
him; his letter was very long, and he wrote it without the help 
of glasses. Since then his paralysis has never returned. M. 
Leffers thinks that the same shock which restored his sight, has 
on the other hand injured the delicacy of his hearing. 
The article from which we have extracted this case, is from 
the pen of M. Olmsted, professor of chemistry in the college of 
North Carolina. 
LXV. On Matting made from the Typha latifolia, or Greater 
Cat’s-Tail. By Mr. Witi1aM Saispury*. 
Tax praiseworthy and successful endeavours of Mr. Salisbury, 
to open a new source of industry, peculiarly within the reach of 
the labouring poor, and of parochial workhouses, have received 
the approbation of the Society; both on their own account, and 
in the hope, that, by being recorded in their volume, they may 
excite others to similar exertions. A material hitherto unem- 
ployed, the spontaneous produce of pools and irreclaimable 
swamps in every part of the kingdom, peculiarly fitted to serve 
as the basis of domestic manufacture in the cottages of the poor, 
and the produce of which, whether sold or employed by the mak- 
ers, will contribute essentially to the increase of their comforts, 
is not to be lightly passed over. One of the most serious priva- 
tions to which cottagers in the agricultural districts are exposed, 
is that of cold during winter, arising in part from the inadequate 
shelter afforded by the hovels in which they live, and from the 
* From the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 
Manufactures, and Commerce, p. viii. and p. 52. The Society's Ceres Medal 
was.voted to Mr. Salisbury for this communication. 
want 
