The Adventure of the Speckled Band the snake wrong, a theory that the swamp adder was an artificial hybrid between the Mexican Gila monster ("Heloderma suspectum") and "Naja naja". His speculation suggests that Doyle might have hidden a double-meaning in Holmes' words. What Holmes said, reported by Watson, was "It is a swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India"; but Klauber suggested what Holmes really said was "It is a "samp-aderm", the deadliest skink in India." "Samp-aderm" can be translated "snake-Gila-monster": "Samp" is Hindi for snake, and the suffix "aderm" is derived from "heloderm", the common or vernacular name of the Gila monster generally used by
The Preserving Machine (short story) chaotic, with all their beauty and harmony lost. The Preserving Machine (short story) "The Preserving Machine" is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was first published in 1953 in the "Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", and is included in a later collection of the same name, "The Preserving Machine". "The Preserving Machine" was originally a companion piece to another Doc Labyrinth story, "Left Shoe, My Foot", later published as "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford". Doc Labyrinth fears for the safety of the fragile works of high culture, particularly classical music,