334 
To the Ediior of the Menthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
NE of your late correfpondents has 
called in queftion the truth of all 
the accounts you have given refpecting 
toads having been found ‘alive in the 
middle of ttones: and he refts his ob- 
jection on the ground, that the various 
xelations have all been given at /ecoud 
bend. He cails for one irem an eye- 
witnefs! Let him take the following, 
given by Ambroie Pare, chief fargeon 
to Henry Ii]. king of France, and a 
man of confiderable “infor rmation and abi- 
dities. 
« Being (fays he) at my ee near the 
village of Meudon, and overlocking a 
Guarry-man, whom I had fet to br eaik 
forse very large and hard ftones, in the 
muddle of one we found a huge live toad, 
though there was no vifible aperture by 
which it could have got there. I could 
not-help exprefine my wonder how it 
had been generated, had grown, and 
lived; but the labourer told: me, it was 
not ‘hie firft time he nad met with toads 
the like creatures within huge blocks 
ef ffone, in which there could be found 
no vifible opening or fiffure.”’ 
Your doubting correfpondent may find 
fimilar relations given ‘by eye witnelles, 
# he will a Baptitta Fulgofa, doge 
ef Genoa; Agricola, Horftius, Lord 
= ts ! 
¥n the volume for 1719 of ** The Tranf- 
ations of the Academy of sabi at 
Paris,” the following is give 
«¢ En the foot of an elm, of he bignefs of 
@ pretty corpulent man, three or four feet 
above the root, and exa@ly in the’ center, 
has been founda live toad, middle-fized, but 
tean, and filling up the whole vacant ipace 
No fooner was a pafiage cpened,. by fplitting 
the-wood, than it {cuttled away very haftily. 
A miore found or firm elm never grew; fo 
that the toad cannot be fuppofed to have got 
nto it: the egg, whence it was formed, muft, 
by fome véry fingular accident, have been 
lodged in the tree at ite firft growth. There 
ithe creature had lived without air, feeding 
on the fubftance of ‘the tree, and growing enly 
as the tree srew,. 
This is at ae by Mr. Huhert, pro- 
felfor of philofophy at Caen. 
Insthe- volume for 1733, M. Seigne, of 
Nantes, lays before the Academy a fact 
jut of the wery fame oneture, excepting 
that, inftead of an-elm, it was an oak, of 
fuch a fize, that judging by the time 
neceflary for its growth, the toad muft 
have fubfifted in it without air or aliment 
guring 30 or 100 years. 
But toads are net the only animals 
: folcna 1s, or cappe lunghe. 
ee 
Eye Witneffes of Toads in. Stoues.....Dr. Toompfon. 
that are found alive in ftones: in Toulow 
Harbour, and the Road, are found folid 
hard {tones and pertectly entire, contain- 
ing, in different cells, fecluded from alf 
communication with the air, feveral liv- 
' ing fhell fith of an exquifite tafte, called 
daéyli, or dates. ‘To come at thele fifh, 
the stones are broken with mallets. 
Alfo along the coaft of Ancona, m the 
Adriatic, are ftones, ufnally weighing 
about fifty pounds, and fometimes more, 
the cutfide rugged and eafily broken, but 
the infide fo compact and.dirm as to re- 
quire a ftrong arm and an iron mailet to 
break them. “Within them, and in iepa- 
rate apertures, are found {mail fhell afa 
quite alive, and very palateable, called 
Thefe faéts are 
attefted by Gaffendi, Blondel, Mayol, 
ine learned bifhop of Stag ara, and more 
particularly by Aldrovandi, a phylician 
of Bologna. The two latter {peak of it 
as a commonly known fact,. and.of which 
they themfelves were 
EYE WITNESSES. 
exe ene 
For‘the Monthly Magazine. 
CuRsORY OBSERVATIONS upon the 
SILICEOUS INCRUSTATIONS of ITA- 
LIAN Hor Sprines, end particularly 
on thofe of the “ CAMPY PHLEGR&I,~ 
22 the Kingdom of Naples. 
By Dr. Toompson, of Naples. 
(1) HE filiceous depofition of Gey- 
fer, in Iceland, is become gene- 
rally known, fince the analyfis of it by 
Bergman. (2 ) In the fucceeding au- 
tumn of 1791, 1 communicated to the 
Journal de Phyfique, of Paris, my hav- 
ing found fimilar incruftations produced 
from the warm waters of the Lakes of 
Saflo, in Tufcany. (3) From thence 
travelling by the Montamiata of “Put 
cany, on the mountain of Santa Fiora in 
the fame autamn, I found there {mall 
filiceous ftala€tites, tran{par ent and bright - 
as reck cryftal, inclofed in the cavities sof 
avery hard lava, which on the flighteft 
application of fire, became opaque, and 
appear like pearls. (4) Pafling the*win- 
ter of 1791 ‘at Florence, there occurred 
to my obiervation a {mail'ipecimen fF a 
fimilar ftalactite fhut up in thé cavities of 
a certain hard lava of the “Evganian 
ountains in the Vicentine; and .atter- 
wards I acquired a fpecimen of impure 
magnefia, called, at Florence, gabbro, 
coming from Impruneta, which Ppectacn 
is covered over with fimilar italatites, or 
little pearie, which pea bright | and 
opaque 
