Natural Histort/. 231 



1812 a 



1816 225 



1117 

 1818 



214 

 204 



1819 188 



1820 180 



The inhabitants of the coast of Brazil say, that they have 

 niade similar observations, but we have no particulars of them. 

 There is a building at Ilheos, which was formerly at a good dis- 

 tance from the sea-shore, but is now scarcely a hundred steps 

 from the breakers. — New Monthly Mag. vi. 69. 



3. On the Rock-crystal of Primitive Marble.—The following 

 account of rock-crystal found in primitive marble, is from an 

 essay on the African Alps, and the marble of Carrara, by M 

 Ripetti, of Florence. If the whole is well authenticated and 

 the editors of the Biblioth^que Universelle, who are certainly 

 competent judges, appear to think it is, it offbrs some very 

 extraordinary facts. ^ 



These crystals are not found indiscriminately in all the 

 Carrara marble, but only in that which belongs to the three 

 excavations of the valley of Ranello, near the foot of Monte 

 Sacro. They are met with either in hollow geodes very com- 

 pletely closed, and against the sides of which the crystals lie 

 irregularly as in siliceous geodes properly so called, or they 

 he in an isolated state in the mass of marble. In the last 

 case they are frequently opaque and of irregular form and 

 It IS said of them that they have not had space. Crystals of 

 calcareous spar are frequently found in their vicinity, which 

 are called lucica by the workmen, and they are considered 

 such certain mdications of the neighbourhood of rock-crystal 

 as to have received the epithet of spies. ' 



The author then says, " there is frequently found in the 

 hollow crystalline cavities at Carrara and elsewhere a very 

 hmpid liquid, slightly sapid, and more or less abundant. I 

 have lately had occasion to verify this fact, very common as I 

 have been told in the valley of the Upper Pianello. The-e I 

 have not only found in these cavities prismatic crystals, but I 

 have seen a very transparent and slightly acid liquid come out 

 ot them as the workmen had said ; and, who further add that 

 they sometimes find it in such quantity as to quench 'their 

 thirst with It, being led to the place by the appearance of the 

 lucica. This IS not all, and that which follows is still more 

 extraordinary. In the spring of 1819, M. del Nero, proprietor 

 of an excavation in the Fossa da l' A7iyelo, hemo; enga^d in 

 sawing out the shaft of a large column of the required Icncrth 

 (or ihc temple of St. Francois at Naples, discovered a luaca 



