orators, or the sage decisions of our statesmen! Nor shall they require to be translated into other languages, for a part of the invention, which has not yet been named, consists in a pasilalinic (or universal) alphabet, whereby a language shall be formed, familiar alike to all people, and tongues, and nations. Again, there will be pasilalinic sympathetic compasses made in the form and about the size of watches, whereon may be lavished the exquisite taste of our fashion able jewellers, and containing snails no larger than a pin's head, whose transparent delicacy and sensitive tenderness will make them admirably adapted for a lady's amanuensis. It is not improbable that these ele- | gant and useful compasses may shortly be seen appended by a chain to the waists of our modish ladies, in lieu of the chatelaines which have so recently been in fashion; and the absolute necessity of adhering rigorously to the moment fixed for their correspondence is a point which will be duly appreciated by our moralists, as tending to generate habits of punctuality and order in the "beau sexe." It was, we are informed, by the merest accident that Messrs. Biat and Benoît discovered the abidingly sympathetic property inherent in snails; and they have ascertained, by a long series of experiments, that others of the crustaceous species possess the same faculty of manifesting this sympathetic commotion, although none of them offer such advantages as a medium of communication as does the snail, partly because of the intensity of its sympathy, and partly because it can exist nearly twelve months without food, as also because of its extreme facility to become fixed within the galvanic trough, and its universal citizenship throughout the whole world.

the curious inquirer might vainly wander on in this mysterious field of investigation. Even in the very outset of the inquiry, innumerable difficulties occur; for as all men are not able to produce the phenomena of magnetic somnambulism, even so all snails do not possess in themselves this permanent sympathetic fluid; nor can the very best of them be available for the compass without being subjected to peculiar influence, which has purposely been kept secret by the dis

coverers.

We are induced to give this warning, less from a regard to the sole and inalienable right of Messrs. Biat and Benoît to the whole tribe of sympathetic snails, in whatever quarter of the globe they may be found, than from a sort of liking for the snails themselves, which makes us unwilling that that they should be persecuted with experiments by mere tyros in science. Let them be tortured, if you will, by such great men as Messrs. Biat and Benoît, who martyrize them only in the cause of intellect and humanity; but we must protest against the doctrine of free trade in science, at least so far as snails are concerned. For ourselves, we have, since becoming acquainted with the noble destinies of these sluggish creatures, began to regard them with respectful interest; and we found ourselves, a day or two ago, peeping into the leafy recesses of an ivy bush, and wondering what would be the fortunes of a loving family who were closely grouped together in that dark retreat!

We therefore once more pray our readers to remember that it is far easier to convey their thoughts all over the world by means of a pasilalinic-sympathetic compass, than to solve the many mysteries involved in its construction.

From "Sartain's Magazine."

PREMATURE INTERMENTS

AND THE UNCERTAIN SIGNS OF DEATH.

BY GEORGE WATTERSTON, M. D.

"ills which flesh is heir to," tend to blunt its sting and soften its horrors; and to those who may have happily placed their reliance on Him who is the rock of their salvation, the anticipated glory of eternity, and the consciousness of a well-spent life present a shield which, in the hour of dissolution, disarms the monster of his terrors, and smooths the rough path to the grave. But even to such it is a condition not entirely free from dread.

"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ?" Few can think of the dissolution of the body, of becoming a kneaded clod, the food of worms, a mass of putrefaction; and of quitting the delicious sunshine, the gorgeous and enchanting scenes of this beautiful world, and all that renders life delightful, with calm and stoical indifference, or with a feeling of anticipated pleasure. To die, to sleep, to be obliterated from the memory of man as a thing that never lived, to sink into the cold grave and be utterly forgotten, is a reflection that must appall the great majority of mankind. Compared with it, the mere physical agony of dissolution is nothing, if that agony is at all experienced, which has been doubted.

"Death is a fearful thing,

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod-

The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death."

To die once, we should suppose, would be enough; but to be buried, and obliged as some have been, to go over all the agonies of a second dissolution, is most horrible. It becomes, therefore, the duty of the living to prevent even the possibility of such a calamity, and to see that every precaution be taken to avoid it. The signs of death are often uncertain, and human beings have not unfrequently been buried before the vital principle was extinct. These should be carefully observed and closely attended to before interment takes place. The most infallible indication of the total extinction of life, is the commencement of putrefaction; and the certain signs of death, according to

Dr. Descamps of France, are a greenish-blue color extending uniformly over the skin of the abdomen. The period at which this sign appears, is about the third day, under favorable circumstances of warmth and moisture. "Though dissolution," he observes, "of various kinds, and from various causes, may occur in other parts, the characteristic marks of death are to be found only in the abdomen." Apparent death can, therefore, no longer be confounded with real death, the abdomen never being colored green or blue in any case of the former; and this color, if attended to, will entirely prevent the danger of premature interment. M. Mainple, a learned Belgian, has recently discovered a very simple mode of distinguishing between real and apparent death. It consists in creating a small burn. If there be life, a blister is always formed, even in the absence of apparent sensibility; but nothing of the kind occurs if death has absolutely taken place. There is no danger to the public health from keeping a body until the appearance of the characteristic signs of death as described by Dr. Descamps. Among the Greeks and Romans, the body was kept from three to six days after death, during which loud lamentations were uttered; the deceased was called upon by name, and the sound of various instruments was heard near the body. This was called the conclamatio.

"Sic funere primo Attonitæ tacuere domus, quum corpora nondum Conclamata jacent, nec mater crine soluto Exegit ad sævos famularum brachia planctus."

In France, premature interments frequently occur, from the prevailing practice there of burying bodies too soon. In the course of twelve years, it is asserted, that ninety-four cases were prevented by fortuitous circumstances. Of these, thirty-four persons came back to life the moment the funeral ceremonies were about to commence; thirteen recovered by the tender care and attention of their families; seven from the fall of the coffins: nine from wounds inflicted by the needle in sewing up their winding-sheets; five from the sensations of suffocation they felt in the coffin; nineteen from accidental delay in interring them, and six from doubts entertained of their death.

In England and the United States, inter

of his sorrow, but induced him to bribe the grave-digger, by whose assistance he raised her from the tomb, and conveyed her to a proper chamber, where, by the application of all the remedies he could think of, she was happily restored to life again. The young woman was probably in great consternation when she found herself in a strange house, beheld her darling lover sitting by her bed, and heard the detail of all that had befallen her during her paroxsym. Her grateful sense of the obligations she lay under to him, and that love she had always borne him, proved an irresistible advocate in his behalf; so that, when she was perfectly restored, she justly concluded that she owed her life to him who had preserved it; and, as a proof of her affection, consented to accompany him to England, where they were married, and lived for several years in all the tender endearments of mutual love. About ten years after, however, they returned to Paris, where they lived without the care of concealment, because they conceived no one could ever suspect what had happened. But this did not prove to be the case, for the collector unluckily met his wife in a public walk, where he at once recognized her. He immediately accosted her, and though she endeavored to divert his suspicions, he parted from her fully persuaded that she was the very woman to whom he had some years ago been married, and for whose death he had gone into mourning. The collector, by great perseverance, not only discovered her residence, in spite of all the precautions she had taken to conceal herself, but claimed her as his wife before the court authorized to decide in such cases. In vain did the lover insist upon his right to her on the ground that he had taken care of her; that, but for his efforts and the measures he had resorted to, the lady would now have been rotting in her grave; that her former husband, who now claimed her, had renounced all claim to her by ordering her to be buried; that he might justly be arraigned for murder, in not using the precautions necessary to ascertain her death; and urged a thousand other reasons, suggested by love: but, perceiving that the court were not likely to prove favorable to his claims, he determined not to await their decision, and accordingly, escaped with his wife to a foreign country, where they continued

| to live in the enjoyment of peace and happiness till death closed their singular and romantic career.

A case of a very similar character is stated to have occurred in Paris, in 1810. Mademoiselle Lafourcade was a young woman of great personal beauty and illustrious family, who possessed great wealth. Among her numerous suitors was a young man, named Julien Bosuet, a poor littérateur, or journalist, of Paris, who proved to be her favorite lover. But her high birth induced her finally to reject him, and to wed a banker and a diplomatist of some distinction, named M. Renalle. This gentleman, however, after marriage, neglected and treated her with cruelty. She passed with him some years of wretchedness, and died,-as it was supposed; for her condition so perfectly resembled death as to deceive all who saw her. She was buried in an ordinary grave, in the village in which she was born. Bosuet, filled with despair, and still inflamed by a profound attachment, hastened from the capital to the province in which the village lay, with the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse and getting possession of her luxuriant tresses as a memento of her. At midnight he secretly unearthed the coffin, opened it, and, while in the act of detaching the hair, he was stopped by the unclosing of the eyes of her he so tenderly and ardently loved. She was aroused by the caresses of her lover from her lethargy or catalepsy, which had been mistaken for death. He frantically bore her to his lodgings in the village, and immediately employed the powerful restoratives which his medical learning suggested. She revived, and recognized her preserver, and remained with him until she slowly recovered her original health. She bestowed her heart upon her preserver, and returned no more to her husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with him to America. Twenty years afterwards, they both returned to France, in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady's appearance that her old friends would be unable to recognize her. But it would seem that they were mistaken. Her former husband, at the first meeting, actually recognized and immediately laid claim to his wife. Of course this claim was resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her and her preserver., It was decided that the

peculiar circumstances of the case, with the long lapse of years, had annulled the original contract and the legality of the authority of the first husband, and that the man who had rescued her from the tomb, and with whom she had lived for so many years, was alone entitled to claim her as his wife.

These two strange cases, though apparent ly similar, occurred at different periods and in different places. In the latter the court seem to have been influenced by a higher eense of justice than that of the court which was about to decide against the claims of the preserver of his wife, and which he avoided by retiring with her to a foreign country.

Among the well-authenticated cases of premature interment, and restoration to life, is the following, which is recorded by Oehlenschlager. It occurred in Cologne in 1547. I give a translation from the original.

Adocht, the reigning burgomaster at Cologne, had buried his young and beautiful wife. She had been subject to frequent fits, and in the last seemed to be dead, and was so considered. The funeral had been magnificent, and a vault in the great cathedral was to hold the body, which had been deposited in a coffin with glass panes and iron wire on the top, according to the manner of the time and the rank of the family, clad in costly robes, the head adorned with rich garlands, and the fingers with precious rings. The sexton, named Peter Bold, had locked the door and returned home, where a scene of a very different nature awaited him. His own wife had prematurely given birth to a fine boy, and was totally unprovided with any kind of the comforts required on such occasions. His marriage had taken place against the desires of his employers, and he had no assistance to expect from that quarter. Isaac the Jew was recalled to his mind, but he would require a pledge. A pledge!' murmured Bold to himself; and why not borrow from the dead, as nothing is to be obtained from the living? I have known this lady who lies yonder. She would not have refused a poor man in the days of her bloom, and why should her manes now begrudge what will do me good, without injuring any one?'

state of feeling. Before, he had been in the discharge of his duty; now he came to commit sacrilege. How awful was the lonely stillness of the immense building, and how threatening were the looks of the saints on the walls and of the cherubs over the pulpit! His courage had almost forsaken him when, passing the altar, he had there to encounter the image of St. Peter himself, who was his patron saint as well as that of the church; but the remembrance of his miserable wife and child overcame every other consideration, and he proceeded through the long choir towards the vault. The countenance of this lovely woman had nothing in it to renew his terror, and he fearlessly removed the lid of the coffin, and seized the hand of the deceased. But what were his feelings when that hand grasped his wrist! In his effort to release himself, he left both his mantle and his lantern. Running away hastily in the dark, he fell over a projecting stone, and lay, for some time senseless on the floor, but, as soon as he recovered, he hastened towards the house of the senator, partly to relieve his conscience, but still more to send assistance into the vault, as he found himself utterly unable to return again to make an examination.

In the mean time the lady had entirely recovered her senses. She overturned the lantern by the first movement of her arms, and was therefore for a while in the dark; but the moon cast a feeble light through a small opening in the top, and by degrees she began to recognize the place. She felt around her, and met with the golden ornaments on her head and the rustling thin silk in which she was dressed. What was her agony and despair, when she found she had been buried alive! She uttered a cry, but she knew too well that it could not be heard. The vault was just under the choir; and what voice could penetrate the massive arches? The little air-hole opened into a private part of the churchyard, which was separated from the rest by an iron railing, and might not be visited for a considerable time. Her dead ancestors were then to be her last companions, and her last occupation was to be that of tracing with her nails upon the black walls the melancholy progress of her real death. Chilled with horror, she sought for something to cover herself, and she found the cloak which Peter had dropped.