THE NATURALISTS’ COMPANION. 
11 
Now you are prepared to commence 
the no less tedious operation of 
stuffing; but before you attempt tins 
practice skinning three or four 
animals until you can skin one with¬ 
out cuttins; or soilino; the skin. Do 
not get discouraged at your many 
failures, hut have patience and you 
will surely succeed in the end. 
TO BE CONTINUED. 
Picticms Snakes. 
Reem, wdio has charge of the rep¬ 
tile specimens in the Smithsonian 
Institute, contridicts much of the 
popular belief as to snakes. Some of 
the most dreaded have no existence. 
The hoop snake, which takes the 
end of its tail in its mouth, and rolls 
over and over like a hoop, killing 
everything it touches with its venom, 
and tJae blow-snake, the breath of 
which is deadly, are fictions. As 
serpents move about, they are con¬ 
stantly feeling ahead with the tongue 
and the forward thrust and peculiar 
forked appearance of this organ has 
given rise to the false idea that 
with it the stinging is done. 
In North America there are but 
three species of poisonous snakes— 
the rattlesnake, the copperhead or 
moccasin, and the coral. There are 
about thirty varieties of these spe¬ 
cies altogetiier. The copperhead is 
probably the most dangerous, as it 
is vicious, and never gives warning 
of any kind before striking. The 
rattle snake, though more poisonous 
than either of the others, will rattle 
at the approach of any thing,and will 
try to get away unless brought to 
bay. The coral is much smaller,and 
is a native of the Southern States.— 
Golden Days. 
Specific Gravity of 
Having had numerous inquiries as to how 
the specific gravity of minerals is assertain- 
ed, we copy the following from “Accum’s 
Analysis of Minerals.”—[Ed, 
Let a piece of the mineral, freed 
from its matrix as much as possible, 
be suspended by a horse hair or 
thread of silk from the scale of a 
fine balance, weigh it in the air,and 
mark down its weight. Let it next, 
still suspended from the balance, be 
immersed in a glass of water, and 
ascertain how much it loses ot its 
first weight it air, how much weight 
is necessary to bring the scale to an 
equilibrim when the substance is 
suspended in water. Having done 
this let the sum of the weight m air 
be divided by the weight which 
the body lost during its immersion in 
the water, the quotient will then 
show the specific gravity of the 
mineral,for instance: suppose a piece 
of mineral weighs in air 360 grains; 
but when Immersed in water loses 
60 grains, the specific gravity of 
that mineral will be 6, for 360 divid¬ 
ed by 60, is equal to 6, that is to 
say the mineral is 6 times heavier 
than water. It therefore contains 
metal and it consequently belongs 
to that class of minerals called ores. 
The three great coal fields of Ala¬ 
bama are the Warrior, the Cahaba 
and the Coosa, The principal of 
these is the Warrior, which extends 
over somewhat less than 5,000 
square miles. The entire strata 
covers an area of about 6,000 square 
miles. 
Reader, do you not think this pa¬ 
per worth fifty cents per year. 
