STAFFORD. -- Some miners at work at the Rough Hills Colliery lately discovered in a solid piece of ironstone a small toad, which on exposal to the air exhibited symptoms of animation, and being put into water lived for about three weeks, growing to nearly double its size when first released from its confined cell, which was just large enough to contain its body. How long it had remained in this situation, or by what means it became embedded in the mineral formation, must be entirely matter of conjecture, as it was found at a depth of 150 feet from the surface of the earth, and in a part of the pit which had never before been excavated. Between the layer of ironstone which contained the animal, and that immediately over it, was a very thin stratum of a clayey substance.
From "The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal" for 1826.
More to follow up in Hardwicke's Science Gossip.
Lecture at the Mechanics' Institution.
We are pleased to find that the committee of the Mechanics' Institution, have secured the services of Mr Randall, of Coalport, the eminent local geologist, to deliver a lecture on the toad which was dug out of a solid body of clay, at Benthall, several feet from the surface, some months ago, and which attracted so much public attention during the few days it was exhibited in the shop of our intelligent townsman Mr Edwards, bookseller, Pride hill.
This remarkable phenomena appears still to be in a very healthy state; notwithstanding it exists entirely without sustenance of any kind - and we can only conjecture as to the number of ages it must have existed in the same condition. We feel assured that from Mr Randall's well-known ability as a lecturer, and his qualifications to undertake a subject of this description, a rich intellectual treat is in store for all who may attend at the Institution on Tuesday evening next, and who may feel some interest in the investigation and elucidation of geological and other remarkable phenomena. We understand the toad will be exhibited during the lecture.
Shrewsbury Chronicle, 10th April 1857.
