Curiosities of Science. 113 



fire when it once began flashing, nor hinder it from running to 

 the very end." He found that a viper was nine minutes in 

 dying on the first trial, and ten minutes on the second ; this 

 increased vitality being, in his opinion, attributable to the 

 stock of air which it had inhaled after the first trial. Dr. 

 Daubeny found that phosphorus would continue lighted at 

 about two feet above the bottom ; that a sulphur-match went 

 out in a few minutes above it, and a wax-taper at a still higher 

 level. The keeper of the cavern has a dog, upon which he 

 shows the effects of the gas, which, however, are quite as well, 

 if not better, seen in a torch, a lighted candle, or a pistol. 



" Unfortunately," says Professor Silliman, "like some other 

 grottoes, the enchantment of the ' Dog Grotto' disappears on 

 a near view." It is a little hole dug artificially in the side of a 

 hill facing Lake Agnano : it is scarcely high enough for a per- 

 son to stand upright in, and the aperture is closed by a door. 

 Into this narrow cell a poor little dog is very unwillingly dragged 

 and placed in a depression of the floor, where he is soon nar- 

 cotised by the carbonic acid. The earth is warm to the hand, 

 and the gas given out is very constant. 



THE WATERS OF THE GLOBE GRADUALLY DECREASING. 



This was maintained by M. Bory Saint Vincent, because 

 the vast deserts of sand, mixed up with the salt and remains of 

 marine animals, of which the surface of the globe is partly com- 

 posed, were formerly inland seas, which have insensibly become 

 dry. The Caspian, the Dead Sea, the Lake Baikal, &c. will 

 become dry in their turn also, when their beds will be sandy 

 deserts. The inland seas, whether they have only one outlet, 

 as the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Baltic, &c., or whether 

 they have several, as the Gulf of Mexico, the seas of O'Kotsk, 

 of Japan, China, &c., will at some future time cease to com- 

 municate with the great basins of the ocean ; they will become 

 inland seas, true Caspians, and in due time will become like- 

 wise dry. On all sides the waters of rivers are seen to carry 

 forward in their course the soil of the continent. Alluvial 

 lands, deltas, banks of sand, form themselves near the coasts, 

 and in the directions of the currents ; madreporic animals lay 

 the foundations of new lands ; and while the straits become 

 closed, while the depths of the sea fill up, the level of the sea, 

 which it would seem natural should become higher, is sensibly 

 lower. There is, therefore, an actual diminution of liquid 

 matter. 



THE SALT LAKE OF UTAH. 



Lieutenant Gunnison, who has surveyed the great basin of 

 the Salt Lake, states the water to be about one-third salt, 



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