Natural History. 247 



cinder colour. They are so numerous, that the smallest fragments 

 exhibit their extremities, and, in certain instances, the surface of the 

 stone is visibly covered with them. The accompanying matter be- 

 ing analysed, was found to be phosphate of lime, united to a small 

 quantity of phosphate of magnesia, and uric acid. 



Each of these varieties has been observed by M. Majendie but 

 once; the patient from whom the first kind came rendered an enor- 

 mous quantity daily. The phosphate of lime common to both 

 varieties is, according to M . Majendie, a result of the excessive use 

 of animal food ; as to the origin of the hairs he does not even form 

 a conjecture. The formation of these calculi was readily pre- 

 vented by prescribing an almost exclusive regimen of vegetable 

 food and alkalis. — BuU. Univ. c. iv. 297. 



15. Conquest of Peril and Mexico by the Mongols, in the Thir- 

 teenth Century. — No historical discovery that has ever occurred, is 

 more important than that which is just now published regarding 

 America. In this volume we are told, that the Incas of Peru and 

 the Kings of Mexico were derived from the generals of the Grand 

 Khan Kublai, who sent a mighty expedition to subdue Japan ; but 

 a furious storm having dispersed the ships, many of them reached 

 America, where the troops and the elephants landed ; and these 

 statements accord entirely with the histories and traditions of the 

 Peruvians and Mexicans. The numerous identifications given in 

 this work leave no room to doubt the truth of these assertions ; 

 and this curious fact accounts for many circumstances in the history 

 of those two empires, which have hitherto puzzled and perplexed 

 all those who have written on that subject. 



The lovers of zoology will be peculiarly interested in thus finding 

 that Mastodontes were living at so recent a period, their remains 

 being found, mixed with those of the elephant, on the spots where 

 the battles were fought, by troops who are decidedly known by the 

 history not to have arrived in those kingdoms till the thirteenth 

 century. 



By what appears in this volume, in addition to a former work by 

 the same author, a new light may be thrown on the subject of the 

 quadruj)eds employed in the wars and amphitheatrical sports of the 

 Mongols and the Romans, all of which, it is rational to suppose, 

 are still in existence. The inference of their being extinct has 

 arisen from inquiries on that subject having been too much confined 

 to geological, instead of historical examination, to 'the latter of 

 which these particular quadrupeds more especially belong. The 

 curiosity thus excited will open a wide field for a considerable ad- 

 dition to our present stock of knowledge on the important and 

 highly interesting pursuit of zoological studies. It ai)pears like- 

 wise that the Romans had the means to procure tapirs from Suma- 

 tra, and the long-sought unicorn is described from two living ani- 

 mals sent by an African monarch to the Sultan of Mecca, in the 

 year 1503. 



