Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1884 — A Long Sleep. [ARTICLE]

A Long Sleep.

A certain famous his ; i ~ical desert snail was brought from ypt to England as a conchological-a dmen in the year 1846. This parti- ir mollusk (the only one of his race,. . 'bably, who ever.attained to individual distinction) at the time of his arrival in London was really ali\e and vigorous, but as-the authorities of the British museum, to whose- tender care he was consigned, were ignorant of this important fact in his economy, he was gummed, mouth downward, on a piece of cardboard, and duly labeled and dated with scientific accuracy. “Helix deserlornm, March 25, 1846.” Being a snail of a retiring and contented disposition, however, accustomed to long-drought-s and jeorresponding naps in his native sand wastes, our mollusk thereupon simply curled himself up into the topmost recessin his own whorls, and went placidly to sleep in perfect contentment for an unlimited period. Every eonchologist’takes it for granted, of course, that the shells which he receives from foreign parts have had their inhabitants properly boiled and extracted before being exported; lor it is only the mere outer shell or skeleton of the animal that we preserve in our cabinets, leaving the actual flesh and mucles of the creature himself to wither unobserved upon the native shores. At the British museum the desert-snail might have snoozed away ,his inglorious existence unsuspecteted, but for a happy accident which attracted attention to his remarkable ease-in a most extraordinary manner. On March 7, 1850, nearly four years latter, it was casually observ.ed that the card on which he reposed was slightly discolored; and this dis- . ooyery led to the suspicion that perhaps ; a living animal night be temporarily immured within thatfpapery tomb. The <museum authorities accordingly ordered.our friend a warm bath (who shall say hereafter that 8' ianee is unfeeling?) upon which the grateful snail, waking up at the touch of ths familiar moisture, put his head cautiously out of his shell, walked up to the top of the basin, and began to take a cursory survey of the British institution with his four eye-bearing tentacles. So strange a recovery from a long torpid condition, only qualified by the seven sleepers of Ephesus, deserved an e&eeptional amount of scientific recognition. The desert-snail at once awoke and found himself famous. Nay, he actually sat for his portrait to an eminent zoological artist, Mr. Waterhouse, and a wood-cut from the sketch thus produced, with a history of his life and adventures, may be found even unto this day in pr. Woodward’s “Manual of the Moilusea,” to witness if I lie.— The CornkiU Magazine. Heating Steam. “No, Joseph, the Steam Heating Company was not formed for the purpose of heating steam. Steam is heated before it is made—that is to say, when you heat the steam—no,when you make the steam—no—well, confound you, don’t you know steam i 5 hot anyway, and doesn’t have to Mb heated by a company?”— Scientific American. The negro debating chib at Sulphur Springs, Texas,- question: 'When a watermelon vine runs ontta another man’s lam£ who the owner of the watermelon T