2360 Geology, Jhineralogy, Scenery, &C. 
at- other times they were covered by a membrane like 
a scabbard, only they were drawn back, so that the 
sheathing membrane formed only a slight protuberance on 
each side of the upper jaw. If irritated, he flattened his 
head, threw it back, opened his mouth wide, and instantly 
the fatal fangs were shot out of their aaa like a spring 
dagger, and ‘he darted on his object. 
After his death I examined the fangs; they were shaped like 
a sickle—a duct led from the reservoir of poison at the bot- 
tom of the tooth, quite through its whole length and termi- 
nated just by the point, which was exceedingly sharp. Thus 
the fang is darted out at the will of the animal—it makes 
the puncture at the instant, and, simultaneously, the poison 
flows through the duct and is deposited in the very bottom 
of the wound. As this rarely fails to touch a blood vessel. 
the venom is thus instantly infused into the system, and 
without delay commences the march of death through ev- 
ery vein and artery. 
These facts, | am sensible, are not new, ‘but they are not 
often related by eye witnesses, and nothing regarding the He 
tory of this tremendous animal can fail to be interesting. 
How happy is it, that the poison of the rattle-snake, is not 
conjoined with ‘te size of the Boa-constrictor, and with the 
speed of the antelope ! 
Ride to Woodbury. 
From the } Mines hill, through Roxbury, to the vicinity of 
Woodbury, eight or nine miles, the sph Se was an uninter- 
rupted succession of high hills, and deep vallies—not moun- 
tainous, but forming vast curves, and causing the face of 
the ground to swell and sink so regularly, that the traveller 
is almost constantly either ascending or descending. ‘The 
hills were composed of gneiss, not naked as I have hereto- 
fore described, but covered with soil and cultivation, and 
following the general direction and stratification of the coun- 
try. Near Woodbury the rocks presented some tour- 
malins. | 
On reaching the top of a hig ae all of a sudden in a 
valley st tretching North and Sout for a mile or two, Wood- 
bury appears, w “ith a handsome, well built street,and furnish-, 
ed with three churches, with spires,—two of them new and 
handsome. For one of these churches, it seems the 
