' 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 naturalists--namely, 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 Academie specimens of gneiss and mica schist,
containing pholades, on which the acid has no effect, he conceives
that they must have entered by boring.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103