146 avy ; Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. fAva. 
. ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
Account of the Labours of the Class of Mathematical and Physicat' 
“Sciences of the Royal Institute of France during the Year 1814. 
I. Physical Department.. By M. Je Chevalier Cuvier, Perpetual: 
; oa) Secretary. lwaw 
CHEMISTRY, 
(Continued from Vol. V. p. 463.) 
More than a hundred years ago there had been extracted from 
the quarries of CEningen, near the lake of Constance, a petrified 
skeleton, which Scheuchzer, a naturalist of Zurich, had taken for 
that of a man, and which he had engraven under the title homo 
diluvit testis. More recent naturalists had considered it as the 
skeleton of a fish. M. Cuvier, from the simple inspection of the 
figure published by Scheuchzer, had considered it as an unknown 
and gigantic species of salamander. Having made a journey to 
Harlem, where this celebrated fossil is deposited in the Teylerian 
Museum, and having obtained permission from M. Van Marum, 
Correspondent of the Class, and Director of that Museum, to dig 
into the stone in order to expose those parts that had been hitherto 
concealed, M. Cuvier discovered feet, with their bones and toes, 
small ribs, teeth along two large jaw-bones; in short, all the charac-_ 
teristic parts; so that it is now no longer possible to doubt that the 
skeleton really belonged to a salamander. He has shown to the 
Class a figure of this fossil thus exposed, which he means to send, 
together with a description, to the Academy of Harlem, 
The same member has exhibited a head of the last animal, called * 
paleotherium medium, recently disengaged from the gypsum of 
Montmartre. This head was complete, and confirmed all the con- 
clusions hitherto drawn from isolated fragments. 
-M. de Humboldt, Foreign Associate, has communicated the 
truly astonishing history of the volcano of Jorullo, which burst out 
in 1759 at Mexico, on a well cultivated platform, where two rivers 
of cold water flowed, and where, during the memory of man, no 
subterraneous noise had been heard. The catastrophe was announced 
some months beforehand by earthquakes and bellowings, which 
continued 15 gr.20 days. A shower of ashes then fell, and more. 
violent bellowings took place, which induced the inhabitants to fly ; 
flames arose over an extent of more than half a league square ; 
pieces of rock were thrown up to a great height; the crust of the 
earth rose and sank like the waves of the sea ; there arose an innu- 
merable multitude of small cones, from six to nine feet high, which 
covered the surface of the platform, and which still remain there. 
Finally, there arose in the direction of S. 8S, E. and N,N. E. six 
hills, the principal of which, still distinguished by a burning crater, 
is not less than 1600 feet in height. These frightful operations of 
t 
