650 
times, but now unknown in Egypt, is 
often seen, and is said to frequent the 
streets even of Senna’ar (as Alexandria 
anciently), in a very confident and do- 
mestic manner, at some seasons of the 
year, but now in'that when Linant was 
residing there. The Guineafow] abounds. 
Of'the larger animals, there are 
droves of wild elephants, but none in a 
reclaimed or domestic state (neither are 
there any, I apprehend, in Abyssinia), 
Which seems to be very strange in 
countries where the people have been 
always warlike. The Hippopotamus is 
common in the river, and the whips 
(called Coorbash) sold in Egypt, are 
really manufactured from its hide ; and 
not from the elephant’s, as I have heard 
pretended at Cairo. This creature is 
not of the form in which it appears in 
all our plates of natural history; it is 
of a much lower and more lengthened 
‘proportion, which I had myself imagined 
from the skin and remains of that which 
T saw (recently killed) at Damietta, in my 
last journey. Its cry is a sort of loud 
grunting, very hideous and alarming, 
especially in the night time; but it is 
not considered a ferocious or dangerous 
animal: neither did any which Linant 
saw exhibit the appearance of those 
protruded tusks which are shown in 
the pictures of this animal. He saw 
some that were of a bay colour, and 
had white faces; this possibly may ac- 
count for the strange misnomer both 
in Greek and in Arabic, of calling a crea~ 
ture, so very differently shaped, the 
river horse. 
The abundance of came!s (of course 
domestic) is so great, that no meat is 
commoner in the market at Senna’ar or 
Shandy; those which become unser- 
viceable being killed for eating. Wild 
swine are found in great numbers 
in the moister places, and are eaten 
by many of the natives, though Ma- 
hommedans, without scruple, who will 
also both eat raw meat occasion- 
sionally, and drink the warm blood of 
living animals. The wild ape goes in 
large herds. The giraffe was spoken of 
as’ of no very rare occurrence; but 
Linant met with none in a wild state ; 
he was, however, so lucky as to see one 
at Senna/ar, brought thither by the Na- 
tives (the same as has been since sent 
_ as. a-present to the Grand Seignior, and 
is, I apprehend, now alive at Constan- 
tinople): this) was at that time very 
_ young, and no bigger than a fawn : very 
gentle and docile in its disposition : it 
then fedupon milk, straddling out its 
atyals 
Extracts from Philosophical and Scientific Journals. 
legs very wide, in order to reach the 
ground, which, with so very long.a 
neck, one should hardly have thought 
necessary, though this has always been 
said of it. The natives uniformly spoke 
of the Unicorn as'of a real and known 
animal, and to the usual description of 
its form added, that the hern was 
moveable at the creature’s pleasure; a 
circumstance which, from. the position 
of it, seems impossible. , 
Linant still seems to cast a wistful 
eye on the White River, upon which 
he had a great desire to have proceeded. 
A strange story was told him: by ‘the 
Jellabs, and persons who had come 
from above, that there is a place, where, 
after becoming immensely broad, this 
Bahr el Abiad turns and flows to the 
westward, which is only possible [?] by 
supposing a great lake, out of which 
two similar streams proceed, one run- 
ning westwards, and one. falling into 
the Nile. The Blue river, the Nile of 
Bruce (and, in justice to Bruce, we 
must add of the people of the country), 
is so nearly dry at one season, that 
Linant himself crossed it when there 
were but a very few inches of water in 
the channel, the Bahr el Abiad having 
then a full and strong current. 
Lava found in the Sands near. 
Boulogne. 
Rosert Bakreweut, Esq., in a letter 
to the Editors of the Philosophical 
Magazine, states the following circum- 
stances :—When I was at Boulogne in 
September last, I was informed that 
masses of lava, of different. sizes, were 
frequently found on the sands west of 
the harbour. M. Dutertre in the lower 
town had several specimens, from 
which he obligingly broke one to) give 
me a part. 
The lava is of a darkish gray colour, 
porus, but extremely hard, and filled 
with grains of olivine ; it -bears a close 
resemblance to the lava from the Puy 
de Nugerre in Auvergne, described in 
the second volume of my Travels in the 
Tarentaise, §c., except that the latter 
contains no olivine, at least in those 
parts where I examined. it. An inquiry 
suggests, itself of some importance: in 
Geology—Are these masses of lava 
which are left on the sands after “high 
tides, merely fragments that have been: 
thrown out as ballast somewhere on 
the coast ? Or are they derived from 
voleanic rocks, hitherto unnoticed, in 
Britanny or Normandy, which,. like , 
those of Auvergne, may have been 
erupted 
