50 Mr. M^tcgillivray on the Granite qf Aberdeenshire, 



The granite of these mountains bears little resemblance in its 

 accidents to any stratified rock that I have seen, but, on the con- 

 trary, approaches to the trap rocks, insomuch that many of the 

 precipices, were they of a darker colour, and less coarsely granular, 

 would bear a perfect resemblance to those of the rocks now gene- 

 rally admitted as igneous. None of the phenomena are incompa- 

 tible with the idea of igneous origin ; and as the granite veins of 

 this district intersect the stratified rocks in their vicinity, and as 

 the granite veins in other primitive districts resemble trap veins in 

 their j)henomena, there seems to me much more reason in suppos- 

 ing granite of igneous origin, than in maintaining it to be analo- 

 gous in its mode of formation to the stratified rocks. 



ART. IV. Baron Cuviei *s Lectures on the History of the Natu- 

 ral Sciences. — ( Continued from Vol. II. p. 451.*^ 



History of the Sciences under the Roman Republic. 



We have brought the history of the sciences to the end of the 

 Grecian period, that is to say, to the time when the kingdoms 

 founded by the lieutenants of Alexander fell under the domination 

 of Rome. We have now, therefore, to follow the track of human 

 knowledge in the Roman Empire ; but, before proceeding farther, 

 let us stay a moment to consider this extraordinary people, whose 

 influence already extended through all the civilized part of the 

 western world. 



Rome was founded 750 years before Christ, — more than 700 years 

 after Cecrops and Danaus had sown the first germs of civilization 

 in Greece, — ^three centuries after the Greeks had established them- 

 selves on the shores of Asia Minor, — one century after their emi- 

 gration towards Italy, — and one century also after the building of 

 Carthage. Its foundation preceded by 80 years the renewal of the 

 relations between Egypt and Greece, by 200 years the epoch of 

 Cyrus, and by 400 the reign of Alexander. 



Rome, at first subject to kings, changed the form of its govern- 

 ment about the year 508 before Christ. The Greeks were at that 

 time established with all their civilization on the coasts of Italy, 



• Consistent with the plan of our New Series, in which the " Collections" are 

 restricted to the recital of facts alone, the lectures of M. Cuvier are now brought 

 into a situation more accordant with their nature, and perhaps more likely to ob- 

 tain for them their proper estimation. It may be useful to mention, that the 

 reports which we are enabled to give of these lectures, being drawn from Le Globe 

 newspaper, must be viewed in the light of mere epitomes of the eloquent details 

 which compose the course of M. Cuvier; but from a comparison with still more 

 abstracted reports contained in the Reviie Encyclopediqne, we feel authorized in 

 considering that we give a sufficiently extensive view of the subject. Ed. 



