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PART III. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. Natural History in Foreign Countries. 



FRANCE. 



Epinal, Oct. 1 5. — There is a small miscellaneous Museum here, but it 

 is more remarkable for Roman sculptures and coins dug up in the neigh- 

 bourhood, than for specimens of natural history. The attention to this 

 science, however, is increasing, as appears both by the specimens lately pur- 

 chased and added to the collection, and by the communications to a very 

 useful periodical which appears here every three months, Le Journal de la 

 Societe cCF/mulation. There is a tolerable collection of minerals, and a 

 number of precious stones of different kinds procured from the shrines of 

 saints, or sacred relics of monasteries or convents, formerly existing in the 

 department of the Vosges. A number of pearls have lately been taken from 

 the fresh-water muscle (iliya.margaritifera), found here in the river Valogne ; 

 and when the Duchess of Angouleme, who lately visited Epinal, saw those 

 in the museum, she very patriotically ordered a necklace from the director 

 and librarian, M, Petit-Jean, a liberal minded excellent man, who seemed 

 to us to unite the best parts of the French and English character. 



Strasburgi Oct. 19. — The Museum of Natural History here contains 

 an extensive collection. It is more than usually rich in corals, sponges, 

 star-fish, and marine MoUusca. There is an excellent specimen of Asterias 

 caput Medus<F, a great number of Gorgonia, of Scalaria speciosa, and of 

 Cypr^^'a, and a pair of gloves manufactured from the fibres of Pinna nobi- 

 lis. There is an excellent collection of birds, especially those of Alsatia, 

 which is rich in this division of animals, and contains some species found 

 but in few other countries. Several species of owls, birds in which Alsatia 

 is verv prolific. 5trix uralensis (the owl of the Ural mountains), rare, and 

 worth fifty Napoleons. Certhia muraria, only found in Alsatia. TVochiiidae, 

 a lar»e collection. Charadrius gallicus and Phaenicopterus ruber, found on 

 the banks of the Rhine. A considerable collection of fishes. Diodon ma- 

 culatus. A good specimen of the rattle-snake. (Sorex moscellatus, from 

 Siberia, very rare, presented by Pallas. Myrmecophaga jubata, the ant- 

 eater, a remarkably fine specimen. Sciuropterus volucella. One of the best 

 collections of butterflies in existence out of Paris and Vienna ; and the same 

 may be said of the collection of organic remains, and petrified productions. 

 Physeter macrocephalus, the head and part of the vertebrae. Large frag- 

 ments of mammoths, elephants, hyenas, and other fossil quadrupeds. A 

 good collection of minerals. Hyalia roule, a species of quartz found in the 

 Rhine, but rare. A collection of the minerals of Alsatia, with those which 

 have been applied to purposes of utility particularly indicated. 



An apartment devoted to vegetable productions, contains the section of 

 the trunk of a silver fir tree {Ahies picea), called Le grand Sapin de Hoch- 

 wald, a forest at Barr, in Alsatia. This tree was 150 ft. high, with a trunk 

 perfectly straight and free from branches to the height of 50 ft., after which it 

 was forked wim the one shoot 100 ft. long, and the other somewhat shorter. 

 The diameter of the trunk at the surface of the ground was 8 ft. ; at 50 ft. 



