Mr. Twining was engaged, in the year 1827, in measuring and inspecting a large lot of hemlock timber cut from the north-eastern slope of East Rock, New Haven (America), and destined for the foundation of a wharf. While thus employed he took particular notice of the successive layers, each of which constitutes a year's growth of the tree, and which in that kind of wood are very distinct. These layers were of various breadths, and plainly showed that in some seasons the trees made a much greater advance than in others, some of the layers being five or six times broader than others. Every tree had thus preserved a record of the seasons for the period of its growth, whether thirty years or two hundred—and what was worthy of notice, every tree told the same story. Thus, by beginning at the outer layer of two trees, the one young the other old, and counting back twenty years, if the young tree indicated, by a full layer, a growing season for that kind of timber, the other tree indicated the same.
"I had then before me," (says this intelligent observer) "two or three hundred meteorological tables, all of them as unerring as nature; and by selecting one tree from the oldest, and sawing out a thin section from its trunk, I might have preserved one of the number to be referred to afterwards. It might have been smoothed on the one side by the plane, so as to exhibit its record to the eye with all the neatness and distinctness of a drawing. On the opposite side might have been minuted in indelible writing the locality of the tree, the kind of timber, the year and month when cut, the soil where it grew, the side and point which faced the north, and every other circumstance which can possibly be supposed ever to have the most remote relation to the value of the table in hand. The lover of science will not be backward to incur such trouble, for he knows how often, in the progress of human knowledge, an observation or an experiment has lost its value by the disregard of some circumstance connected with it, which at the time was not thought worthy of notice. Lastly, there might be attached to the same section a written meteorological table compiled from the observations of some scientific person, if such observations had been made in the vicinity. This being done, why, in the eye of science, might not this natural, unerring, graphical record of seasons past deserve as careful preservation as a curious mineral, or a new form of crystals?"
THE CAMEL AS A SCAPE-GOAT.
A very singular account of the use to which a camel is sometimes put, is given by the traveller Bruce. He tells us that he saw one employed to appease a quarrel between two parties, something in the same way as the scape-goat was used in the religious services of the Jewish people. The camel being brought out was accused by both parties of all the injuries, real or supposed, which belonged to each. All the mischief that had been done, they accused this camel of doing. They upbraided it with being the cause of all the trouble that had separated friends, called it by every opprobious epithet, and finally killed it, and declared themselves reconciled over its body.
SUSPENDED VOLITION.
A young lady, an attendant of the Princess ——, after having been confined to her bed for a great length of time with a violent nervous disorder, was at last, to all appearance, deprived of life. Her lips were quite pale, her face resembled the countenance of a dead person, and the body grew cold.
She was removed from the room in which she lay, was put in a coffin, and the day of her funeral fixed on. The day arrived, and, according to the custom of the country, funeral songs and hymns were sung before the door. Just as the people were about to nail on the lid of the coffin, a kind of perspiration was observed to appear on the surface of her body. It grew greater every moment, and at last a kind of convulsive motion was observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few minutes after, during which time fresh signs of returning life appeared, she at once opened her eyes and uttered a most pitiable shriek. Physicians were quickly procured, and in the course of a few days she was considerably restored.
The description which she gave of her situation is extremely remarkable, and forms a curious and authentic addition to psychology.
She said it seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was really dead; yet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in this dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking, and lamenting her death, at the side of her coffin. She felt them pull on the dead-clothes, and lay her in them. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which is indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was without power, and could not act on her body. She had the contradictory feeling as if she were in her body, and yet not in it, at one and the same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arm or to open her eyes, or to cry, although she continually endeavoured to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height when the lid of the coffin was about to be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the one that gave activity to her soul, and caused it to operate on her corporeal frame.