GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 365 



IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES IN ABYSSINIA. 



M. ROCHER D'HERICOURT, who has lately returned from a voyage to 

 Abyssinia, has brought with him above a score of manuscripts in the 

 Ethiopian language, all of vast antiquity and great literary value. 

 They are folio in form, bound in red leather, with the Greek cross 

 and strange ornaments on the covers. In some of them the writing 

 runs across the page ; in others it is in columns ; in nearly all it is 

 firm and bold in character. Some of the manuscripts are on history, 

 religion, and science ; one is a complete and very curious treatise on 

 the mystery of Eastern astrology ; and one, which appears to have 

 been written at the beginning of the llth century, contains a copy of 

 the Bible, which differs in some respects from the ordinary version. 

 London Literary Gazelle. 



NEW STATUE DISCOVERED AT ROME. 



DURING the month of November, in the course of some excavations 

 in the Transtevere, in Rome, a statue of a wrestler was discovered, 

 wrought in Greek marble. It is of a semi-colossal size, and many ar- 

 tists, who have examined it, say that it is in merit at least equal, if not 

 superior, to the Apollo Belvedere. It very much resembles a statue 

 described by Pliny. London Neics, 



TOMB OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON. 



A FRENCH paper gives the following details relating to works for the 

 tomb of the Emperor Napoleon. An immense circular crypt has been 

 dug beneath the dome ; within which, on three shafts of green mar- 

 ble, the sarcophagus containing the Emperor's coffin will repose. A 

 huge block of porphyry, presented by the Emperor of Russia, is des- 

 tined to cover the sarcophagus. A lower gallery, paved with mosaics, 

 and lined with marble bas-reliefs, representing the principal events of 

 the Emperor's life, will admit the public to move around the sarcoph- 

 agus. Twelve colossal statues, in white marble, will sustain an 

 tipper gallery, whence the sarcophagus may be looked down on and its 

 details examined from above. These allegorical statues, from the 

 chisel of Pradier, represent the principal branches of human activ- 

 ity, science, legislation, war, arts, &c. A magnificent altar of 

 black marble, veined with white, rises in front of the tomb. Four 

 large and beautiful columns, also of black and white marble, support 

 the canopy of carved and gilt wood. Ten broad steps, each cut from 

 a single block of Carrara marble, lead up to the funeral altar. Be- 

 neath this altar is the passage to the lower gallery above spoken of; 

 whose entrance is guarded on either side by the tombs, in black mar- 

 ble, of Bertrand and Duroc, dead marshals keeping wait at the 

 door of the imperial dead. The marbles employed in the construc- 

 tion of this tomb cost not less than a million and a half of francs 

 ($300,000), in the rough ; the sculptures and bas-reliefs cost six 

 hundred thousand francs ($120,000). The block of porphyry, for the 



