412 ADDITIONAL PHENOMENA OF NATURAL MAGIC. 



tempted as for drowning. Remember that the death may 

 be only apparent, and your care may be repaid by the 

 inexpressible delight of seeing life gradually resumed and 

 the party restored to his family." This excellent advice 

 cannot be too carefully adhered to, for there can be no 

 doubt that where people have been buried alive culpable 

 carelessness has had much to do with the matter. There 

 is a condition to which humanity is in extraordinary 

 instances liable, where, without absolute asphyxia or 

 complete stoppage of the circulation, the pulsation may 

 be so low that, though the person is only in a very pro- 

 found state of prolonged sleep and low vitality, the 

 evidence of circulation in the blood and consequent 

 pulsation may escape ordinary attention, and the coldness 

 of the breath, from the temperature of the body being 

 allowed by those in attendance to get too low, may not 

 even mist a mirror held before the face. This, however, 

 which is only a state of coma, will not deceive the com- 

 petent physician, who in all such cases will be able at 

 once to detect the difference between coma and asphyxia ; 

 and the danger of interment alive to the sufferer will only 

 occur where medical aid has not been called. Instances 

 of coma being produced artificially are said to be known 

 to the Hindoos, who will allow themselves to be thrown 

 into it, and even buried alive, for short periods, in 

 shallow graves, where the porousness of the earth allows 

 sufficient air to reach them for the low rate of respiration 

 which takes place while they are in that state. More 

 astonishing instances occur among some of the other 

 animals that of bears in the northern districts of Europe 

 and elsewhere, which has been already referred to, being 

 sufficiently well known. And those remarkable cases of 

 toads found in stones in the course of quarrying, and 

 other excavations of the earth's crust, where the animal 

 must to all appearance have remained imprisoned for 



