t:Si3 Antiquities. — Botany, Geology, &"€. 



ANTIGUITIIiS. 



Last year some workmen, bv command of the Neapoli- 

 tan government, and particularlv at the desire of the secre- 

 tary Seratti, beoan to clear away the rubbish around the 

 aniient temple of Pa-stum. In the course of this year the 

 diffiring will be completed, and a description of all the re- 

 mains of antiquity which have been discovered will be pub- 

 lished. The well-known antique vase of Parian marble, 

 the raised work of which represents Bacchus in his infantine 

 state delivered by Mercury to a nymph to be educated, one 

 of the most beautiful pieces of this kind, the work of 

 Salpion the Athenian, which formerly served as a baptismal 

 font in the cathedral of Gaetta, has been conveyed to the 

 kinti's museum at Naples. 



M. Petrini, who set on foot some researches at his own 

 expense in the neighbourhood of Ostia, has found a sittipg 

 figure of the Tyber, which the Papal government has pur- 

 chased from him for 7000 sequins. 



BOTANY, GEOLOGY, &C. 



The collection of plants and library of the late professor 

 AVahl, of Copenhagen, will, inconsequence of a resolu- 

 tion of his Danish Majesty, be given to the botanical gar- 

 den. The most important manuscripts he has left behind 

 him are a Sy sterna Fcgctaiilhini, in which all the plants 

 l;nown to him are described in systematic order, with 

 their distinguishing characters ; the third part of his work 

 Eclogce Anwruance, ready for the press, and of which the 

 plates are engraven ; his Iccturess on zoology ; the botanical 

 terms of art and diilcrent branches of botany ; also several 

 drawings and scattered observations on the Danish and 

 Norvegian zoology. 



According to letters from M. Humboldt at Paris, to a 

 friend at Berlin, he is at present employed in the following 

 four works : A physical description of the equinoctial 

 regions ; a Flora of the same ; the astronomical observa- 

 tions and measurements made during his travels between 

 the tropics; and conjointly with Gay-Lu.ssac, some treatises 

 on endiometrv and the constitution of the atmosphere. 

 The last, it is probable, will appear in French, the rest 

 in German. He will soon undertake a tour to Italy with 

 Gay-Lussac, and afterwards another to the most northern 

 point of Norway. 



7 FORMATION 



