316 REPTILES. [Caar. IX. 
any vegetable substance, for it is almost entirely com- 
posed of phosphate of lime. Mr. Faraday adds that “ if 
the piece of matter has ever been employed as a spongy 
absorbent, it seems hardly fit for that purpose in its 
present state; but who can say to what treatment it has 
been subjected since it was fit for use, or to what treat- 
ment the natives may submit it when expecting to have 
occasion to use it?” 
The probability is, that the animal charcoal, when 
instantaneously applied, may be sufficiently porous 
and absorbent to extract the venom from the recent 
wound, together with a portion of the blood, before it 
has had time to be carried into the system ; and that the 
blood which Mr. Faraday detected in the specimen sub- 
mitted to him was that of the Indian on whose person 
the effect was exhibited on the occasion to which my 
informant was an eye-witness. The snake-charmers 
from the coast who visit Ceylon profess to prepare the 
snake-stones for themselves, and to preserve the com- 
position a secret. Dr. Davy!, on the authority of Sir 
Alexander Johnston, says the manufacture of them is a 
lucrative trade, carried on by the monks of Manilla, who 
supply the merchants of India — and his analysis con- 
firms that of Mr. Faraday. Of the three different kinds 
which he examined — one being of partially burnt bone, 
and another of chalk, the third, consisting chiefly of 
vegetable matter, resembled bezoar,—all of them (ex- 
cept the first, which possessed a slight absorbent power) 
were quite inert, and incapable of having any effect 
except on the imagination of the patient. Thunberg 
was shown the snake-stone used by the boers at the 
1 Account of the Interior of Ceylon, ch. iii. p. 101. 
