stalactite or the growth of wood. But it
still remains to be ascertained how long this state of torpor may
continue under total exclusion from food and from external air: and,
although the experiments above recorded shew that life did not extend
two years in the case of any one of the individuals which formed the
subjects of them, yet, for reasons which have been specified, they are
not decisive to shew that a state of torpor, or suspended animation, may
not be endured for a much longer time by Toads that are healthy and well
fed up to the moment when they are finally cut off from food, and from
all direct access of atmospheric air.

"The common experiment of burying a Toad in a flower-pot covered with a
tile, is of no value unless the cover be carefully luted to the pot, and
the hole at the bottom of the pot also closed, so as to exclude all
possible access of air, earthworms, and insects. I have heard of two or
three experiments of this kind, in which these precautions have not been
taken, and in which at the end of a year the Toads have been found alive
and well.

"Besides the Toads inclosed in wood and stone, four others were placed
each in a small basin of plaster of Paris, four inches deep and five
inches in diameter, having a cover of the same material carefully luted
round with clay; these were buried at the same time and in the same
place with the blocks of stone, and on being examined at the same time
with them in December 1826, two of the Toads were dead, the other two
alive, but much emaciated. We can only collect from this experiment,
that a thin plate of plaster of Paris is permeable to air in a
sufficient degree to maintain the life of a Toad for thirteen months.

"In the 19th Vol., No. I, p. 167, of _Sillimans American Journal of
Science and Arts_, David Thomas, Esq. has published some observations on
Frogs and Toads in stone and solid earth, enumerating several authentic
and well-attested cases. These, however, amount to no more than a
repetition of the facts so often stated and admitted to be true, viz.,
that torpid reptiles occur in cavities of stone, and at the depth of
many feet in soil and earth; but they state not anything to disprove the
possibility of a small aperture, by which these cavities may have had
communication with the external surface, and insects have been admitted.

"The attention of the discoverer is always directed more to the Toad
than to the minutiae of the state of the cavity