Antiquities. — Dloptrich. 2S1 



inventions, and the names of eminent benefactors of man- 

 kind, ought in this manner to be handed down to pofterity. 



^ANTIQUITIES. 



A distinguished Artift, who is travelling through the 

 fouihem departments of France, charged by government 

 forth a miffion relative to the arts, in a letter dated Aix, 

 Prairial 14th, fays: « Some workmen, who were differing up 

 the ground on the declivity of an eminence which overlooks 

 Vienne, difcovered a fmall group, confuting of two children 

 formed of white marble, in perfect prefervation, and exceed- 

 ingly well executed ; one of the children holds a bird, which 

 the other endeavours to fnatch from it, and which feems to 

 peck the arm of the latter. Each of the children refls 

 againft the trunk of a tree. At the bottom of one of thefe 

 trunks, and near the child which holds the bird, is feen a 

 ferpent; and on the other trunk there is a lizard having i a 

 its mouth a butterfly. 



DIOPTRIC KS. 



THE Abbe Hauy, having poltfhed a fragment of tranf- 

 parent native fulphur, found that it poflefies the power of 

 double refraction in a very eminent degree. The two faces 

 of this fragment are inclined to each other about twelve 

 degrees, and their greateft diftance is fourteen millimetres, 

 or a little more than fix lines. If this fragment be placed on 

 a piece of paper on which a line has been drawn, two very 

 diftind images of the line are feen. By obferving objects 

 fomewhat remote through this fragment, it maybe judged; 

 by the diftance between the images, that the refra&ion of 

 fulphur in ftfelf mutt be very confiderable, allowance being 

 made for the denfity of that fubftance, the fpecific weight of 

 which is only double that of water ; and. this agrees with the 

 refults of Newton, in regard to' the refractive powers of in- 

 flammable bodies. Cit. Hauypropofes to make experiments 

 in order to determine the quantity of this refradion, which 



7 has 



