74 Imperial Institute of France. 
never before: been found native, or asa natural product. 
The specimen contained nine different substances, such as. 
muriates of iron, &e. which the author did not particularly, 
enumerate. Mr. S. expressed his belief in the volcanic or 
igneous origin of the earth, that it had been ejected hy the 
explosion of some comet, and that the greater part of, 
mineral productions bear evident marks of having under- 
gone the action of violent heat. 
The Astronomer Royal communicated some further ob- 
servations on the circumpolar stars, and Dr. Almon a mas 
thematical paper to the President, neither of which were of, 
a nature to be read. Mr. Pond also communicated the 
observations made by Capt. Hill on the comet which was 
visible in April and May last. 
The Society then adjourned till Thursday, November 4. 
IMPERIAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE FOR THE YEAR 1812), 
DRAWN, UP BY M. CUVIER. 
[Continued from vol. xl. page 392.] 
Zoology, Anatomy, and Animal Physiology. 
Last year, we said a few words upon the researches of 
M. Lamouroux, upon those innumerable and very sinall, 
eels known at the mouth of some of our rivers by the 
name of montée, and we stated the probability of their be-. 
longing to some of the Jesser known species of this genus. 
M. Lamouroux has in fact ascertained by new experiments 
that the montée is the fry of the pimperneau, a kind of eel 
indicated by Count Lacepéde in his history of fishes, and 
which is distinguished from the rest by its pectoral fins 
being shaped like the wings of a bat. 
M. Risso, a naturalist of Nice, who published two years, 
since a very good work upon the fishes of that latitude, 
has transmitted to the Class another on the crustacee, i. e. 
on the animals of the crab kind. M. Risso in his distri- 
bution adopts the method of M. Latreille, to which he adds 
only four new genera. He describes 100 species, about 
one half of which appear to him to be new: sixteen are re- 
presented in coloured plates. The Class, while it applauds 
the zeal with which M, Risso, in so unpropitious a situa- 
tion, endeavours to make known the various animals of the 
Mediterranean, which have been hitherto so badly described, 
must nevertheless be put in possession of more precise de-, 
tails, before ascribing the character of novelty to so great a 
number of species. 
The ancients speak much of an insect which they called 
Buprestos, 
li 
