THE LOST VOLCANOES OF CONNECTLCUT. 235 



Tires are taken is a very wooden affair ; it is rigid and straight- 

 lined, instead of varying in irregular curves after a natural fash- 

 ion ; yet it may serve to present concrete illustrations of the suc- 

 cessive stages through which the Meriden district has passed ; 

 and when thus viewed, the interest of the place grows wonder- 



¥iQ. 14. — Diagrammatic View of a Faulted Monocline, between crystalline plateaus on 

 east (E. PI.) and west ( W. PL), to illustrate the general structure of the Connecticut Tri- 

 assic belt. Relative breadth much reduced. The supposed underground structure is 

 shown in a vertical section in the foreground, and the inferred overground structure (now 

 lost by erosion) in a vertical section in the background. A strip of actual surface lies be- 

 tween the two sections. The even peneplain, to which the whole mass was first reduced, 

 is shown by dotted lines at the level of the eastern (E. PI.) and western (W. PI.) crystal- 

 line plateaus. 



fully. Its scenery is not grand or magnificent ; many other re- 

 gions exceed it in height of mountains or depth of valleys ; but 

 it has a fine story to tell about its lost volcanoes, and it tells the 

 story with great distinctness and emphasis when the listener 

 passes by. 



Important literary discoveries have attended the labors of Egyptologists dur- 

 ing the present year. In January was announced the recovery of nearly a com- 

 plete copy of the lost work of Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens— a docu- 

 ment which throws new light on important events in Grecian history from the 

 time of Solon down to the age of Pericles. The examination of the papyrus 

 leaves of whicli certain coffins found at Tel Gurot, in the Fayoum, were made, 

 has resulted in the recovery of several fragments of ancient literature of greater 

 or less value; the most notable of which are a large part of a lost play, Antiope, 

 of Euripides, and of parts of the Pheedo of Plato, of a copy nearly contempo- 

 raneous with the authors, and furnishing a purer text than those from which the 

 modern editions of this work are derived. Much was expected from the ])apyri 

 found with the one hundred and sixty-three priestly mummies which were discov- 

 ered last spring at Deir-el-Bahari, near Thebes ; but, so far as they have been ex- 

 amined, they have afforded nothing more valuable than funereal texts. 



