ed fragments are still found
in widely separated parts of the continent.

A HUMAN PHENOMENON.--M. de Quatrefages, the naturalist, has examined a
real phenomenon, a Provencal of thirty, named Simeon Aiguier, who had
been presented by Dr. Trenes. Aiguier, thanks to his peculiar system
of muscles and nerves, can transform himself in most wondrous fashion.
He has very properly dubbed himself "L'Homme-Protee." At one moment,
assuming the rigidity of a statue, his body may be struck sharply, the
blows falling as on a block of stone. At another he moves his
intestines from above and below and right to left into the form of a
large football, and projects it forward, which gives him the
appearance of a colossally stout personage. He then withdraws it into
the thorax opening like a cage, and the hollow look of his body
immediately reminds one of a skeleton. Aiguier successfully imitates a
man subjected to the tortures of the rack, as also a man hanging
himself, and assumes a strikingly cadaveric look. What most astonished
M. de Quatrefages was the stoppage of the circulation of the blood,
now on the left and now on the right side, which was effected by
muscular contraction.--_Boston Transcript_.

SURVIVING SUPERSTITIONS.--The once flourishing and wealthy colony of
German Rappites, or Harmonists, who sold out New Harmony, Indiana, to
old Robert Owen sixty years ago, (where Owen's grand fiasco occurred,)
and removed to Economy, Pa., held their annual festival on the 15th of
February in the usual solemn manner. Father Rapp is dead long ago, and
of the thousand energetic religious and industrious enthusiasts who
have been so prosperous in worldly matters, scarcely fifty remain as
feeble old men, and their pastor, Father Henrici, is over 83 years
old; but the honest and worthy old enthusiasts are still waiting for
the personal coming of Christ, who, they believe, is to come before
their society dies out, establish his kingdom with his throne on Mount
Sinai, and judge and rule the world. They believe that their beloved
Father Henrici will never die, but will lead them to the presence of
their Divine Master on Mount Sinai; and he proposes to lead them to
Palestine, when they have signs of the Lord's approach, that they may
be ready to meet him.

There is a solemn beauty and grandeur in these weird old superstitions
of good people; but, alas! the Rappites must soon pass away, as the
Girlingites have expired in England, when Mother