Gaffarillus, in his book, entitled “_Curiosités Inouies_,” published in 1650, when speaking on the subject of talismans, signatures, &c., observes that, since in many instances the plants used for these purposes were reduced to ashes, and no longer retained their form, their efficacy, which depended on their figure, should inevitably be destroyed; but this, he says, is not the case, since, by an admirable potency existing in nature, the form, though invisible, is still retained in the ashes. This, he observes, may appear strange to those who have never attended to the subject; but he asserts that an account of the experiment will be found in the works of Mr. Du Chesne, one of the best chemists of the period, who had been shown, by a Polish physician at Cracow, certain vials containing ashes, which, when duly heated, exhibited the forms of various plants. A small obscure cloud was first observed, which gradually took on a defined form, and presented to the eye a rose, or whatever plant or flower the ashes consisted of. Mr. Du Chesne, however, had never been able to repeat the experiment, though he had made several unsuccessful attempts to do so; but at length he succeeded, by accident, in the following manner: Having for some purpose extracted the salts from some burnt nettles, and having left the ley outside the house all night, to cool, in the morning he found it frozen; and, to his surprise, the form and figure of the nettles were so exactly represented on the ice, that the living plant could not be more perfect. Delighted at this discovery, he summoned Mr. De Luynes, parliamentary councillor, to behold this curiosity; whence, he says, they both concluded that, when a body dies, its form or figure still resides in its ashes. Kircher, Vallemont, Digby, and others, are said to have practised this art of resuscitating the forms of plants from their ashes and at the meeting of naturalists at Stuttgard, in 1834, a Swiss savant seems to have revived the subject, and given a receipt for the experiment, extracted from a work by Oetinger, called “Thoughts on the Birth and Generation of Things.”—“The earthly husk,” says Oetinger, “remains in the retort, while the volatile essence ascends, like a spirit, perfect in form, but void of substance.”