154 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



body, was considered by the ancient Romans as sure to die within 

 as many days as there are days in the life of the aniinal. 



Prof. Silliman. — How did they get at the number of days in the 

 life of the animal, sir ? (Laughter.) 



Prof. Shepard. — That was determined, sir, by the number o^ 

 days at the end of which the person died. (Increased laughter.^ 

 Nero was supposed to have been poisoned by it ; Domitian, it waai 

 sa'd, poisoned his brother with this fluid; and it was commonly 

 believed that this fluid was one of the most powerfully conceu' 

 trated poisons in the world. Apuleius was once arraigned on a 

 charge of poisoning, merely because it was proved that he oncgi 

 employed a person to catch one of these little sea hares. Whereas,' 

 it is now known to be one of the most harmless and inoffensive 

 little animals in the world. It is a true moluscula ; its class is the 

 gasteropoda of Cuvier, and of the order techtebranchiata ; and 

 this is the only species of that order ever found in our loaters. I 

 obtained it on the shore at Charleston, S. C. It could scarcely 

 move when I took it from the water. As soon as 1 placed it in ? 

 white pocket handkerchief, it drenched the handkerchief with i 

 beautiful carmine or deep purple fluid, as though it had beer 

 drenched with blood ; this appears to be its only mode of defence 

 and is discharged from an appendage close to the gills, througl| 

 millions of pores, there being no general outlet ; secreted like sali 

 va ; it has no ink bag, like the cuttle fish, but like it, can discolo 

 the waters round it ; it will color a hogshead of water as dark at 

 port wine. It lives along the shore ; feeds on fuci ; the body i 

 five inchts long, and the foot is five and a half inches long. | 

 could not come from the West Indies ; it is a slow tr. -.'eller ani 

 has many enemies. A different species is found in Americai 

 others at Marseilles and Barbary. 



GOLD AND DIAMONDS OF BRAZIL. 



Prof. Shepard then made a few very interesting remarks on th 

 elastic sandstone of the gold region. He produced a specime 

 from Buncombe county, N. C, which very much resembles th 

 elastic sandstone of Brazil. In Charleston he met with a ver 

 eminent scientific man named Shreiver, of Ilessia, (formerly a sti 

 dent of Gottingen) who had passed a year or two in Georgi." 

 making observations, and who had several specimens of this beaut 

 ful sandstone. He had been induced to collect these from tt 

 fact that Baron Eswege had, in describing the gold and diamon 

 regions of Brazil, shown that the elastic sandstone prevails M 

 tensively there. The fact also induced Dr. Eglehart to searc 

 carefully the Ural Mountains, and there he foumi this elastic san« 

 stone in abundance. He then predicted that diamonds aiid platii 

 would soon be found in those Ural Mountains, and on searchin 



