I heard this story from Mr. Leyton, during a visit to him in May. George West was then head ploughman to a neighboring farmer, one of the cleanest, best behaved, and most respected laborers in the parish. [From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.] BORAX LAGOONS OF TUSCANY. In a mountainous district of Tuscany, lying about twenty miles west of Sienna, are situated the extraordinary lagoons from which borax is obtained. Nothing can be more desolate than the aspect of the whole surrounding country. The mountains, bare and bleak, appear to be perpetually immersed in clouds of sulphurous vapor, which sometimes ascend in wreathed or twisted columns, and at other times are beaten down by the winds, and dispersed in heavy masses through the glens and hollows. Here and there water-springs, in a state of boiling heat, and incessantly emitting smoke and vapor, burst with immense noise from the earth, which burns and shakes beneath your feet. The heat of the atmosphere in the vicinity of the lagoons is almost intolerable, especially when the wind blows about you the fiery vapor, deeply impregnated with sulphur. Far and near the earth is covered with glittering crystallizations of various minerals, while the soil beneath is composed of black marl, streaked with chalk, which, at a distance, imparts to it the appearance of variegated marble. As you proceed, you are stunned by the noise of constant explosions, which remind you that you are traversing the interior of a mighty crater, which in past ages was, perhaps, filled with a flood of liquid fire. Borax was first brought to Europe, through India, from Thibet, where it is found in a mountainous region, resembling in character the district of Tuscany we have described. If we except some doubtful specimens, said to have been discovered in coal-pits in Saxony, we may assert that the mineral is found nowhere else in Europe, or that the territories of the Grand Duke enjoy a natural monopoly of the article, which, with the growth of the manufacturing system, is coming more and more into use every day, especially in France. In former times, when the value of the lagoons was not understood, the hollows and gorges in the mountains where they are situated were regarded by the superstitious peasantry as the entrance to hell. Experience taught them that it was in many respects a region of death. Whatever living thing fell into the lagoons inevitably perished, for the devouring acid almost in a moment separated the flesh from the bones. Cattle were frequently thus lost, and the peasants themselves or their children sometimes encountered a similar fate. A celebrated chemist, engaged in making experiments on the impregnated water, accidentally fell into a lagoon which he himself had caused to be excavated, and perished immediately, leaving a wife and several children in indigence.