Se ES, 
Antiquities. | 3ll 
basi ANTIQUITIES. 
_ A Monk at Rome, in the course of exploring the traces of one 
of the 12 Monasteries of St. Benedict, has discovered a large 
edifice which is supposed to have been built by Nero. He has 
opened a length of 260 feet, and found 12 chambers square and 
circular, besides an aqueduct of 200 paces 
Numerous packages, containing statues and other antiquities 
from Upper Egypt, collected by the zeal and encouragement of 
Mr. Saltz, were lying at Grand Cairo and at Rozetta, at the end 
of December, when our letters came away, waiting for a vessel 
to transport them to England. 
The English are much respected in Egypt; many of them have 
made parties and gone to Upper Egypt ; and never were cireum- 
stances more favourable for excursions of this nature, the Pacha 
affording then every kind of countenance and facility —The 
Countess of Belmore, who is with one of these parties, has been 
further up the Nile than was ever before effected by any Euro- 
pean female. — 
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES. 
Letters from Rome of the 12th of February state, that the en-- 
terprise formed to draw from the bed of the Tiber the statues and 
other wrecks of antiquity which it is supposed are deposited there, 
appears to obtain success. Already the sum of 60,000 seudi is 
almost completed. ‘This sum is deposited in the hands of ae 
Papal banker, the Duke of Torlonia. All the objects which it 
hoped will be drawn from the bed of the river, by means ar a 
machine invented for the purpose, will be formed into oue mass, 
and valued by connoisseurs. The Pope’s chamber will receive a 
sixth, and will also have the right of priority to purchase the rest. 
A Papal commissioner is appointed to superiutend the enterprise. 
The operation will last two months, and will be terminated be- 
foge the beginning of September. Should it succeed, the director 
of the enterprise, M. Varo, promises to each shareholder a pre- 
mium of 200 scudi, besides the interest of his money. The Eng- 
lish display much zeal in subscribing for every enterprise useful 
to the arts. 
_ The steps before the Temple of Peace are now clearing, and 
the side of it towards the Golden House, that the world may at 
length know which way the Via Sacra turned. 
EXCAVATION IN TAURIS. 
In the course of some recent diggings, near Fanagoria in the 
government of ‘Tauris, a vault in the form of a tomb was (lis- 
covered, containing a human body of prodigious size ‘jn a state 
ofhigh preservation. It is presumed that the body has hain there 
since a remote period of antiquity, for it is well known that Tauris 
U4 formed 
