VARIETIES. 
373 
]y saturated. To make the solution as strong as possible, I have 
added a few grains of the iodide of potassium, which furthers the 
capability of the ether to take up more of the iodine. There are 
different modes by which this can be prepared, that will be readily 
suggested to your several readers. All of them, however, will 
tend to the same result. 
In some cases it may be used at a reduced strength, according 
to the amount of counter irritation or stimulation which individual 
cases may seem to require. 
Dover } N. H. June 27, 1851. 
Hyraceum. — This substance is much valued by many farmers, and well 
known among them, by the rather harsh and unpoetical name of Dasjespis. 
Thunberg and other travellers mistook it for a kind of bitumen ; but it is in 
fact the secretion of a quadruped, which is common throughout the colony, 
and that lives gregariously on the rocky summits of mountains, viz : the 
Klipdas or Hyrax capensis. It is worthy of note, that this production has 
baffled the researches of eminent zoologists, who have failed, from even 
minute dissection, in discovering any specific secretory organ from which 
this matter could be derived. It may be asserted, however, that the Hyra- 
ceum is produced by the uropoetical system of the animal just named, and 
in order to explain this seeming anomaly, it must be observed, that the 
Hyrax drinks very seldom, if ever. Its urine, like that of the hare, is not 
thin and limpid as in other quadrupeds, but thick and of a glutinous nature, 
From a peculiar instinct, these animals are in the habit of secreting their 
urine always at one spot, where its watery parts evaporate in the sun, 
while its more tenacious portions stick to the rock and harden in the air. 
The fresh urine of the hyrax is of a reddish tint, and this has given rise to 
the opinion of those who took this production for a kind of menstrual se- 
cretion. 
This substance is common on our mountains, and is to be found mixed 
with earth and dirt near the caves or crevices where these animals have 
their haunts. 
30 
