1837] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



265 



principally in the nothern lakes, and in the Ohio 

 river m^ir Cincinnati, and all who saw them de- 

 clatred they had never before known such fish to 

 be taken (i-oni the western waters; as they are 

 not miirratory, it is probable they were transport- 

 ed in the clouds. 



My object beinir to invite the attention ofthe emi- 

 nent in the philosophy of'nature to a subject which 

 I beieve has never yet come under the observation 

 o/'such, I will not venture any opinions of my 

 own; but respecllul'y submittinj; what I have al- 

 ready written to those who are less liable to eri', 

 coitcliute a coramuiiicaiion much longer than 1 

 intended it. 



D. L. Wood. 



[The foregoing article presents a strange and as yet 

 nnaccountable fact, of which there have been too 

 many similar stated on good authority, to be denied. — 

 But none ot the causes stated above, or elsewhere, 

 are sufficient; or even tenable, as actual occurrences. 



But it is not for the curiosity of the facts stated that 

 we have republished this piece, so much as for the cu- 

 rious manner in which they are presented. The piece 

 is a perfect specimen of the obfuscating style — or that 

 mode of writing by which darkness is spread instead 

 of light. Many a plain man, of good sense though no 

 Scholar, and used merely to plain and common Eng- 

 lish, might read through more than half this descrip- 

 tion, before he could even guess what animals the 

 writer was speaking of; and he might have been no 

 wiser to the end, if the writer had not afterwards con- 

 descended to use the common terms "fishes" and 

 *'frogs." 



But though the source of supply of the fish is hid- 

 den, it is not so with the young land frogs; nor are 

 we left to suppose, from the want of any other origin, 

 that they fell from the clouds, when they are seen 

 in great numbers. Their march may generally be 

 traced backwards to rivers, or other pieces of wa- 

 ter, whence they issue, after ceasing to be tadpoles, 

 m the night, and hop to considerable distances before 

 morning. They hide during the heat of the day, and 

 it is only after rains, when the earth is moist, and the 

 sun obscured, that they all leave their hiding places, 

 and are then seen in such numbers, as to induce many 

 persons to believe that they fell from the clouds with 

 the rain that had just ceased. But such an opinion 

 would not have been supposed to gain credit with a 

 man of science, or even with one who, like the writer, 

 above uses so exclusively words "of learned length and 

 thundering sound." — Ed. Far. Reg. 



STATE OF CROPS. 



The rains, since the middle of June have been very 

 generally propitious in lower and middle Virginia — 

 Plough many places still suifer much with drought — and 

 the crop of corn in general promises an abundant har- 

 vest. Our tobacco and cotton crops also promise well. 

 Reports are also favorable, as to all the staple crops in 

 the south. The wheat has already proved to be a crop 

 very far exceeding the hopes entertained by the most 

 sanguine but a few weeks before the harvest. Still, 



we do not concur in the general belief, that, in Virginia, 

 there has been a ftdl or average crop of wheat reaped. 

 But, in general, every man has strong grounds, and pe- 

 culiar reasons which we heartily pray may never again 

 exist, to rejoice in the present prospect of plentiful 

 crops. For it is the tillage of the earth, principally, 

 indeed almost exclusively, that is to pay off the enor- 

 mous debts in which our people are involved; and un- 

 der the deplorable existing circumstances of our trade 

 and currency, it is not only a matter of joy for the far- 

 mers who are to profit by the sale of the abundant crops 

 and for the consumers who will get cheaper supplies of 

 provisions, but also for every citizen and lover of his 

 country to rejoice in the hope of this bounty of nature 

 enabling us so soon to remove the evils brought upon 

 ourselves by our own folly and madness. 



From the Mining Ja\ita& 

 BFPECTS of sea water ON IRON. 



Iron, afler remaining a long time submerged in 

 the sea, Is converted into plumbago. As an evi- 

 dence of this change, M. Eudes Deslongchamps 

 has lately presented to the Linneean Society of 

 Normandy some cannon balls taken from the bot- 

 tom, off Cape le Hogue, which were sunk with 

 the ships under Admiral Tourville, in 1692^ — 

 They do not at first sight appear to have under- 

 gone any change; but when examined, are found 

 to have lost two-thirds of their weight, and may 

 be scraped or cut with a knife, like black lead. — 

 They contain no remains of their original ferrugi- 

 nous qualities, and have not the least effect upon 

 the loadstone or magnetic needle. 



tVom tlie Farmeris' Magazine< 

 SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 



I think the cotton manufiicturer should be ap- 

 prised of the imminent danger and risk he incurs 

 irom the contact of cotton and linseed oil. To 

 this cause alone, I am inclined to refer the origin 

 of many of the destructive conflagrations which 

 have occurred not only in cotton maimfactories, 

 but the warehouses of Liverjjool. From facts I 

 might refer to, conjoined with my own e.xperi- 

 ments, this conclusion may be clearly substantia- 

 ted and confirmed. A small portion of linseed 

 oil sprinkled in a bale of cotton will certainly oc- 

 casion spontaneous combustion. 



Ftom the same. 

 LABURNUM SEED. 



The fact of the highly poisonous nature of the 

 seeds of the laburnum cannot be (especially about 

 this season of the year,) too generally known, as 

 children are apt to eat them from their pea-like 

 forms and the appearance of the pods. Serious 

 accidents have occurred from this circumstance, 

 and, if I remember right, death has supervened 

 in more cases than one. I know no better remedy 

 than an emetic, followed by a solution of chloride 

 in water, or chloride of soda or of lime, as strong 

 as can be taken. This is the most effective reme- 

 dy I have ever seen in cases when corna, Sfc. had 

 followed the action of poisons in the case of acci- 

 dents from vegetable poisons. 



