Morning Herald

Extraordinary Fact—A live Rat embedded in Stone.—Yesterday week, as two miners, of the names of Jonathan Thompson and George Douglas, were occupied in blasting a drift in a strata of solid stone, called the scar limestone, at Alston Moor, six fathoms below the surface, they shot into a small cavity of the rock, out of which, to their surprise, sprung a full grown rat. The miners endeavored to take the animal alive, but in their attempts to do so it was killed. How long the rat had been embedded in its living grave, and in what manner it had contrived in such a situation to exist, (considering the organic formation of the animal.) are questions that must be left to conjecture. On examination, the strata around the cavity was found to be perfectly solid and close in every part. Such are the facts as communicated to us by a correspondent on whom we can rely, and who made particular inquiries upon the spot. We have often heard of toads being found in such situations, but never before of a rat having been so placed. The men were excavating in a garden, the property of T. Dickinson, Esq.—New Castle Journal.