(56 Proofs from old English Books, that tht 



mits of Saxony, the author observes that the same country' 

 presents also some veins the mass of which has a greater or 

 less affinity to basaltes, and particularly the wacke and 

 grunstein. Those who know the opinion of Werner on 

 the origin of these veins, may readily conceive the advan- 

 tage which partisans of the aqueous origin of basaltes must 

 derive from this arrangement. 



C. Daubuisson terminates this article with a review of 

 the basaltes of Lusatia. Here it is still the same substance, 

 containing the same heterogeneous principles, exhibiting 

 the same peculiarities of arrangement and structure. The 

 only difference between them consists in this, that in Sax- 

 ony the basaltic mountains are nearest to the ridge of the 

 chain, and that in Lusatia they are nearer the bottom : some 

 even are seen at a considerable distance in the plain, and 

 completely insulated. 



[To be continued.] 



XV. Curious Extracts from old English Books, with 

 Remarks which prove, that the Telescope, &c. were 

 known hi England much earlier than in any other 

 Country, 



To Mr. Tilloch.— {Letter II.) 



[Coi eluded from our last volume, p. 156.] 



18. If this be granted, and if it be also proved, by our 

 quotations from the Pantometria and the Stratioticos, that 

 Digges, the father and son, actually constructed telescopes, 

 then it will follow, that that instrument was known in Eng- 

 land long before the period of its reputed invention ; which 

 was all that I proposed to prove. 



19. But it is so natural to ask how those ingenious men 

 came by that knowledge, that I find it impossible to quit 

 the subject, without looking somewhat more particularly 

 into the source from whence such knowledge was probably- 

 derived. And here we have little else to do, than to follow 

 the lights held out to us by the authors, whose works we 

 have cited. Dr. Recorde, as we have seen (§ lr3), though he 

 does not expressly mention Roger Bacon as his instructor 

 in this subject, gives us reason to infer from his own words, 

 that he acquired what he knew of it, either from the writings 

 of that philosopher, or from rules traditionally transmitted 

 from his time, along with the maxim, that such knowledge 

 wa> " more meet for princes than for other men." Bacon 



has 



