168 Miscellanies. 



lowing extract of a letter from David Thomas, Esq*, late engineer of 

 the Erie canal, to Prof. J. Griscom, furnishing some authentic infor- 

 mation on this question cannot fail to be interesting to physiologists. 



1 The report that a living toad was found in limestone rock at 

 Lockport in 1822, I well remember. I had never heard it doubted, 

 but was too much occupied at the time, to make very particular en- 

 quiries. The following is the evidence that I have lately obtained on 



this subject :'■ 



Dr. Isaac W. Smith recollects that " In preparing jambs from 

 limestone, thrown out in excavating the Erie canal at Lockport in 

 1822, John Jennings, a man of unimpeached veracity, declared, that 

 on breaking into a cavity in the stone, a toad fell out, and jumped 

 several times. It soon died, and that evening it was purloined for 

 the purpose of selling it at Albany as a curiosity. Perhaps at that 

 time, no person in Lockport doubted the truth of this statement, as 

 the cavity in the jamb stone, perfectly suited to such a tenant, was 

 open to inspection, and may now be seen in the underpinning of Wm. 

 C. House's store in Lockport." 



My friend George H. Boughton, (now of the senate) in a letter, 

 dated, Albany, March 1, 1830, says, " The circumstances of the 

 toad's being found in the solid rock in the summer of 1822, are all 

 familiar to me, but none came under my personal observation, ex- 

 cept the stone, said to have contained it. 



" Jennings, the man who related the fact, was preparing jamb 

 stones for a counting room in the store occupied by Mr. House and 

 myself. The stone was taken from the canal, then excavating, some 

 four feet below the surface, [detached from the solid rock, and sur- 

 rounded by earth.] 



" The stone had been marked out for the jamb, and on breaking 

 it to the line, it broke through the centre of the cavity, leaving about 

 one half in the face of the jamb. The toad, which was represented 

 to be of the small brown kind, fell out, and after jumping two or 

 three times, (not more) expired. I passed along a few minutes after, 

 and had the relation from Jennings, but did not see the toad. He 

 said some Irish laborers came along just at that time, and took it 

 away with them. I was too much engaged, and thought too little of 

 it at the time (much to my regret since) to seek them out, and ob- 

 tain the animal. 



" Jennbgs was directed not to work the cavity out, and it stood 



tor years in our counting room, where you may remember to have 



