death is caused by a snake, or a crocodile, or a leopard, that the animal has been bewitched to cause it. The person accused of witchcraft is compelled to drink a decoction of a poisonous wood called sassha-wood; if he vomits up the drink, he is considered not guilty and let go; otherwise, he is killed if he does not die of the poison. They have a great fear of white people and all that comes from them, and especially regard paper that has been written upon as a fetich and the place or the thing on which it falls as taboo. When Dr. Buchholz on one occasion dressed the wounds of a sick person, he let a little piece of paper fall out of his pocket without noticing it. When he next went to visit the sick man, he found that his patient had been quarantined because the house was considered bewitched, and the piece of paper was ceremoniously handed back to him. One day, when a woman was to be buried, the negroes sent a messenger to him with a special request that he would not leave any pieces of paper anywhere that he went, because, if he did, they would have to keep away from those roads and places. A son of old King William, of Bimbia, having died after a long sickness, an innocent man was accused of having caused his death by witchcraft. He was taken out and hung; immediately the whole population, men, women, and children, ran to the shore, stripped off the little they had on, and went into the water to wash off whatever enchantment might be on them. One of the festivals among the Deialla negroes was diversified by an exhibition of single combat. The champion who achieved the most brilliant victory was hailed with great applause, and his mother sung and danced to his honor; but one of the defeated ones went up to his mother and reproached her because she had not given birth to a stronger son.
A Remarkable Coal-Mine Explosion.—M. A. Delesse gives in "La Nature" an account of an explosion of carbonic acid which took place in a coal-mine at Rochebelle, France, on the 28th of July, 1879. Two workmen, who were at the bottom of a shaft about three hundred and seventy-five yards deep, heard a sudden detonation, which was followed in about a minute by another louder one. Their lamps were instantly put out; they felt a faintness, and were barely able to escape to the hoist-car and be drawn out. Three other miners, who were working in a gallery ninety yards higher, were suffocated. The scene of the disaster was afterward examined, and it was decided that the explosions could not have proceeded from carburetted hydrogen, for they were not accompanied by flames; thin partitions in the shaft and upper galleries were not broken; the bodies and clothes of the dead men showed no signs of having been burned; and powder which lay in the gallery and in cartridges had not taken fire. No signs of carburetted hydrogen had ever been observed about the mine, but carbonic acid had always been present, sometimes in such quantities as to compel the men to cease work, and a ventilating apparatus had been put up to discharge it. The explosion was found to have taken place in front of the excavations in one of the upper galleries (two hundred and sixty-six yards below the surface), which was obstructed for a considerable distance by the broken coal. Small particles and dust were thrown out to a much greater distance, and the man who was working in front had been thrown back and buried under the fragments. About seventy-six tons of coal appear to have been displaced by the explosion. Carbonic acid continued to escape from the coal after the accident, and even the pieces that had been thrown into the gallery gave it out when they were disturbed. No satisfactory explanation has been offered of the manner in which the gas could have accumulated, and have gained so high a pressure as to cause a detonating explosion. The gas, it is suggested, may have been formed by the action of the sulphuric acid which escapes from a vein of rapidly oxidizing iron pyrites in the neighborhood upon an adjoining bed of limestone, but this leaves the question of a violent explosion still unsolved.
A Systematic Investigation of Earthquakes.—The Swiss Natural History Society has appointed a special commission of seven members for the systematic observation of earthquakes. Recognizing that a large number of observations at as many
