THE SALAMANPEK. 39 



Absurd notions confuted. 



elements, which cannot consume it ; and they 

 have called it the Daughter of Fire, giving it, 

 however, a body of ice. The moderns have fol- 

 lowed the ridiculous tales of the ancients; and, 

 as it is difficult to stop when one has passed the 

 bounds of probability, some have gone so far as 

 to think that the most violent fire could be ex- 

 tinguished by the land salamander. Quacks sold 

 this small lizard, affirming, that if thrown into 



' O' 



the greatest conflagration it would check its pro- 

 gress. It was very necessary that philosophers 

 and naturalists should take the trouble to prove 

 by facts what reason alone might have demon- 

 strated ; and it was not till after the light of 

 science was diffused abroad, that the world gave 

 over believing in this wonderful property of the 

 salamander." 



The salamander has been also esteemed a poi- 

 sonous reptile, and consequently held in terror; 

 but this opinion has been refuted by numerous 

 experiments. M. de Maupertuis, who minutely 

 studied the nature of this lizard, in order to dis- 

 cover what might be its pretended poison, de- 

 monstrated also experimentally that fire acted 

 upon it in the same manner as upon all other 

 animals. He remarked, that it was scarcely upon 

 the fire before it appeared to be covered with 

 drops of a kind of milky fluid, which oozed 

 through all the pores of the skin, and immedi- 

 ately became hard. It is needless to say that 

 this fluid is not sufficiently abundant to extin- 



