Next, M. Abeille, chief physician to the hospital at Ajaccio, has an interesting communicationOn the employment of electricity to counteract the accidents arising from too long inhalation of ether or chloroform. He found that patients submitted to galvano-puncture could not be rendered insensible by the effects of etherthe galvanism invariably restored sensationand taking this accidentally-discovered fact as the basis of further research, he set to work and made a series of experiments on living animals, and arrived at results which in a brief summary are: that electricity, made to operate by means of needles implanted in several parts of the body, especially in the direction of the cerebro-spinal axis, reawakes sensibility, and immediately puts the relaxed muscles into play. 'It constitutes,' he adds, 'according to my experiments, the most prompt and efficacious meansI may say the only efficaciousto restore to life any person whose inhalation of chloroform has been prolonged beyond the time prescribed by prudence. It is the first means to which recourse ought to be had; and trials made in other ways appeared to me to lead to nothing but loss of time, which in many cases would be fatal.'
M.H. Deschamps says, that there is a 'certain sign of death,' which, if attended to, will entirely prevent risk of that much-dreaded accidentpremature interment. It is a certain green tinge which always makes its appearance on the abdomen, even before the cadaverous smell, and is a positive evidence that decomposition has begun. There are some people to whom the knowledge of this fact will be a satisfaction; but if, as is popularly supposed, bodies are not unfrequently buried alive, how is it that we never hear of a revival in a dissecting-room? Then, on another point of physiology, M. Payerne states, with regard to the distress experienced by many persons in the ascent of a high mountain, 'that the lassitude and breathlessness felt in elevated places appear to proceed, not from an insufficiency of oxygen, but rather from the rupture of the equilibrium between the tension of the fluids contained in our organs and that of the ambient air, whatever be the way in which the rupture is produced.' And, to close
these physiological matters, M. Chuart begs the Académie to include among their premiums for rendering arts or trades less insalubrious, one for 'different inventions designed to diminish the frequency of accidents which take place in coal-mines from explosions of gas.' How much such inventions are needed, recent events in our own coal districts but too painfully demonstrate.
Our Meteorological Society may perhaps take a hint from M. Liais's suggestion as to the 'possibility of applying photography to determine the height of clouds, and to the observation of shooting-stars;' and M.F. Cailliaud, director of the museum at Nantes, says something not uninteresting to naturalistsnamely, that the statements commonly made, that all molluscous animals perforate stone by means of an acid, is not the fact with regard to Pholades and Tarets . He observes, that although a workman would be amazed on hearing a proposition to pierce calcareous stone with the shell of a Pholas , yet he himself has done it, and holds the success to be a proof that the animal can do the same. The idea of the acid might be accepted, while it was proved that the creatures were to be found only in limestone; but now that he has sent to the Académie specimens of gneiss and mica schist, containing pholades, on which the acid has no effect, he conceives that they must have entered by boring. They have also been found in porphyrya fact of which Brongniart said, many years ago, that nature had concealed the explanation, and we must wait for a solution. Whether M. Cailliaud's solution be the true one or not, is a point that will soon be verified or disproved by geologists and naturalists, who are never better pleased than when an inquiry, which may lead to new views of nature, opens before them.
That the age of great books is not past, is proved by an arrival from Americathe United States' government having presented to several public and private institutions in this country, a large, handsome quarto, which contains, to quote the whole title, Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, collected and prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, per Act of Congress . The preparation and arrangement of this work having been intrusted to Mr Schoolcraft is a sufficient guarantee for its value. It throws much light on the Indian tribes of North America, and rectifies many erroneous ideas and impressions concerning them and their origin. Perhaps you will allow me to give you, in a few words, the author's views on this part of the subject. He considers the ancient monuments, found in parts of the United States and in Mexico, to have originated within five hundred years of the dispersion from Babel; that the Indians are the Almogic branch of the Eber-ites; and that the ancient monuments do not denote so high a degree of civilisation as is generally supposed. It is only since the discovery of America by Europeans that anything like certainty attaches to the history of the natives. The Mohicans 'preserve the memory of the appearance and voyage of Hudson, up the river bearing his name, in 1609;' and among other tribes similar traditions are retained. In the wrong-headedness and persistence of idea, the Indians entirely resemble the Oriental branches of the great Semitic family; and the evidence shews that originally they crossed over from Asia at Behring's Strait, a voyage still performed in canoes to the present day. One of the titles of Montezuma was Lord of the Seven Caves; and the caves in which tradition says the traverse took place, are taken to be the caves or subterranean abodes still used by the Aleutian islanders. This was current among the Aztecs in 1519, and the voyage of the United States' Exploring Expedition has furnished a philological proof of connection, in the peculiar termination of nouns in tl , which is common to the inhabitants of Nootka Sound, as it was to the Aztecs. The more the Indians are studied, the more does everything about them appear to be Easterntheir language, religion, calendar, architecture, &c. Their worship of fire in the open air, avoiding the use of temples, is precisely that of Zoroaster, as is also their leading doctrine of two spiritsgood and evilruling the world; and the allegory of the egg of Ormuzd has been found in an earthwork on the top of a hill in Adams's County, Ohio. 'It represents the coil of a serpent, 700