GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 393 



being given by smalt upon gold. Golden bracelets of a serpent form surrounded 

 dry bones, around which once beat the pulses of passion. Her vest must 

 evidently have been embroidered, for garlands of myrtle, both the leaf and 

 the berry, were found in gold, and all are clearly pierced with the holes by 

 which they were once attached to the dress. Eound the head was a diadem 

 of various flowers, the cups of which were formed of rubies and jacynths and 

 emeralds of great beauty, and sometimes of smalt of different colors. A 

 beautiful ring was found on one of the fingers of this female. The circle is 

 formed of two clubs of Hercules, the point where they meet beneath being 

 surmounted by a ruby ; whilst on the upper and opposite part of the ring is a 

 box, where might have been the hair of a lover or Persian perfumes ; the 

 cover is formed of a large emerald. The work is of the most delicate filigree, 

 displaying a great variety of beautiful forms : hi short, ah 1 regard it with 

 astonishment, and doubt whether modern art could produce anything so 

 perfect. " And when," said I to Signer Bonucci, " might this tomb have been 

 closed upon its inmates ?" "Oh!" was the answer; "judging from the art, 

 it might have been about the time of Alexander the Great, or at all events 

 two thousand years ago?" "What a field for the play of the imagination! 

 Two thousand years ago!" said I; "so large a period, that it seems to 

 belong not to time but to eternity ; and yet the art of the painter, and the 

 potter, and the sculptor, and the architect of that time, is brought before us 

 as fresh as though it had been executed but yesterday ; nay, more, the handi- 

 work of the milliner and the upholsterer is shown to our wondering eyes, and, 

 dressed in the habiliments of the drawing-room, the inmates of the tombs 

 seem ready to receive us." 



OX THE INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA. 



The following paper on the unknown ulterior regions of Australia was 

 read before the British Association by Mr. Petermann, the well known geo- 

 grapher : 



At a time when the exploration of the unknown ulterior of Australia was 

 earnestly thought of, the probable character of that extensive region became 

 a subject of particular interest, and of legitimate inquiry. Scarcely one-third 

 part of Australia could be said to have been even partially explored, and by 

 far the largest portion was therefore entirely unknown. This unknown 

 interior of Australia had frequently been a matter of speculation, at first 

 founded on very few facts. But, as our knowledge increased, and actual facts 

 became more numerous, the theories had been modified. One of these 

 hypotheses was, that the interior, to a certain extent, consisted of a shoal sea. 

 It was hi 1814, only forty years since, when the exploration of inner Australia 

 might lae said to have been systematically commenced, that Mr. Oxley, the 

 first surveyor-general of New South Wales, a man of acknowledged ability 

 and merit, surrounded about one-eighth part of the longitudinal extent of 

 A-Ustralia. By tracing down the rivers Lachlan and Macquarie, he was 

 checked in his progress westward by marshes of great extent, beyond which 

 he could not see any land. He was, therefore, led to infer that the interior 

 was occupied by a shoal sea. of which the marshes were the borders, and into 



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