General Literature. 193 



companied by wood-cuts, is given in tlie Monthly Magazine 

 for September, p. 102, of a skull found in a tree. The tree 

 was an ash, and was cut down about two years since in 

 Penley Abbey Farm, near Warwiclf. It was supposed to be 

 about eighty years old. The skull was closely imbedded in 

 the solid part of the trunk, about nine feet from the ground, 

 and was discovered when the tree was sawn up into rafters. 

 The piece in which the skull lay being cut out a section of 

 it has been made. The wood around the bone was every where 

 perfectly sound, except in one small place, where it is decayed, 

 but this had no communication with the exterior at the time 

 the tree was cut. The grain of the wood was completely 

 deranged, and seemed to embrace the bone round which it 

 had found. The skull is supposed to have belonged to a deer. 

 It is now in the possession of the Rev. Thomas Cottle, of 

 Warwick Borough. 



IV. General Literature. 



1. Ancient MSS. — M. Maio still continues to be successful in 

 his search after lost works of ancient writers; he has lately found 

 several parts of the books ofPolybius, Diodorus, Dion Cas- 

 sius, some fragments of Aristotle of Ephorus, of Timeus, of 

 Hyperides, of Demetrius, of Phalaris, &c., some parts of the 

 unknown writings of Eunapius, Menander of Byzantium, Pres- 

 cius, and of Peter the Protector. They were discovered in a 

 MS. containing the harangues of the rhetorician Aristides, from 

 a large collection of ancient writings made by order of Coa- 

 stantius Porphyrogentes, of which only a small part are known 

 to be extant; the writing appears to be of the eleventh century. 

 M. Maio has also found writings of the Greek and Latin fathers 

 prior to St. Jerome, with other valuable works. 



2. Statuary Marble. — Some remarkably fine statuary and other 

 marble quarries have lately been discovered at Scravazza, in 

 Tuscany, much superior to any thing of the kind at Coanara, 

 \yhich threaten to rival and lower the pride of the latter-men- 

 tioned place. His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany 

 gives great encouragement and protection both to commerce and 

 the fine arts within his dominions. 



3. Inventor of the Steam Engine.— K letter was published in 

 the Gentleman's Magazine for 181 1, which Mr. Tilloch has again 

 brought into notice. The writer of it refers to the Harleian MSS. 

 for proof that the real inventor of the Steam Engine was Samuel 

 Morland, master of the works to Charles II. Morland wrote a 

 book upon the subject, in which he not only shewed the practi- 

 cabdity of his plan, but even calculated the power of different 



Vol. XII. O 



