uman
frame destroys life in two minutes.

But when chemically combined with other substances, its power is in a
great measure neutralized, and it becomes a valuable article, both to
the chemist as a test, and to the physician as a medicine. The Prussiate
of potash and iron will enable the chemist to discover nearly the whole
of the metals when in solution, by the colours its combination produces.
Dr. Zollekoffer says, that in intermittent fevers the Prussiate of iron
is in its effects superior to Cinchona bark, and says it never disagrees
with the stomach, or creates nausea even in the most irritable state,
while bark is not unfrequently rejected; a patient will recover from the
influence of intermitting and remitting fevers, in the generality of
cases, in much less time than is usual in those cases in which bark is
employed. S.S.T.

* * * * *

THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.

VOLTAIRE.

(_Continued from page 64_.)

A certain Hungarian traveller, a man of consequence in his country, but
not particularly wise, had fruitlessly tried to be introduced, without
finding any one at Geneva, willing to undertake the task, as they were
all afraid Voltaire would be rude to him. A young man, who heard of
this, engaged to procure the stranger an interview with Voltaire; and on
the day appointed, contrived to have him conveyed out of town to a
good-looking residence, where well-dressed servants received him at the
door, and ushered him up stairs in due form. Here then at last he found
himself, as he thought, _tete-a-tete_ with Voltaire. The _malade de
Ferney_, personated by our young friend, was lying down on a sofa,
wrapped up in a damask robe-de-chambre, a night-cap of black velvet,
with gold lace, on his head, or rather on the top of an immense periwig,
_a la Louis XIV_., in the midst of which his little, sallow and
deeply-wrinkled visage seemed buried; a table was near him, covered with
papers, and the curtains being drawn, made the room rather dark. The
philosopher apologized in a hollow voice, interrupted by occasional fits
of coughing; he was ill _bien malade_, could not get up, begged the
stranger to be seated, asked questions about the countries he had
visited, made him tell his adventures, those of gallantry particularly,
and was himself most facetious, and most profanely witty. The Hungarian
delighted, and far more at ease than he had imagined possible, casting a
glance on the papers, ventured