392 Vesuvius and Pompeii.— Veratrine Alkali. 



A manuscript of the eleventh century, containing illustrations 

 of Juvenal, which was discovered about two years ago in the li- 

 brary of the convent of St. Gallen, by Professor Cramer, is about 

 to be committed to the press. A specimen was pubhshed by 

 the Professor on occasion of the king's birth-day, under the title 

 of Specimen novce Editionis scholasticce JuvenaUs. 



The French Ulerati are occupied at this time in a work of 

 some importance — preparing translations of Plutarch, Salust, 

 Tacitus, Aristotle, Hippocrates, &c. from the Arabic MSS., into 

 which language many or all the best Greek and Roman authors 

 are known to have been translated. 



The French ambassador at Constantinople, M. Giardin, lately 

 sent to Paris fifteen valuable MSS. in Arabic, from the Imperial 

 library there, among which are the complete works of Plutarch 



and Herodotus. 



VESUVIUS AND POMPEII. 



During a late eruption of Vesuvius a shower of ashes fell on the 

 now uncovered part of Pompeii. M. de Gimbernat, a Spanish 

 naturalist, having compared the substances of which this recent 

 shower is composed, with those which anciently overwhelmed the 

 citv, could not find the smallest resemblance between them, and 

 doubts whether that city really was ruined by a shower of ashes. 

 He also observed, within a few days after the eruption, that the 

 crater of Vesuvius was covered with crystals of common salt — a 

 pretty plain indication that the admission of sea-water into the 

 interior of the mountain has something to do with the phseno- 

 nienon. ■ 



POMPEII. 



A public edifice, supposed to be the Chalcidium, and an in- 

 scription importing that the edifice was built at the expense of the 

 priestess Eumachia, has lately been excavated at Pompeii, near 

 the fonun. A statue of the same priestess was found a few days 

 after in perfect preservation. This is one of the best «tatues yet 

 found there. 



AN EXAMPLE THAT OUGHT TO BE FOLLOW D . 



The iron masters of Sweden have settled an annuity of 500 

 crowns on M. Berzelius, in consideration of the services that me- 

 ritorious philosopher has rendered to the arts dependent on che- 

 mistry, and to manufactures of several kinds, by his discoveries 

 and communications. 



Vl'.RATRINE ALKALI. 



We announced in our last volume, p. G7, that MM. Pelletier 

 and Caventan had discovered a new alkali in the seeds of the Fe- 

 ralrum Saludilla, or Cevadilla: it has been found also by these 

 chemists in the Feratrum album, or white hellebore, and in the 



Col- 



