Scientific and General Memoranda. 431 



SCIENTIFIC AND GENERAL MEMORANDA. 

 Audubon's Birds of America. — We have very great pleasure in 

 stating, that the merits of this great work are beginning to be 

 understood Jn this, which is the native country of its author. 

 Before his return here, in September last, there were only five 

 copies subscribed for in the U. States ; there are now eighteen. 

 The Legislature of Louisiana has authorized a subscription for 

 two copies, and the Legislature of South Carolina for one. We 

 hope this example will be followed by the legislatures of the 

 other States. One copy of this splendid national work adorns the 

 National Library at Washington. 



The Bohan Upas and the Valley of Death. — It has now become 

 probable that the wonderful story of the poisonous tree, Bohan 

 Upas, in Java, is a vulgar error; and that the story owes its 

 existence to imperfect accounts of the Guwo Upas, or poisoned 

 valley, in that island. This terrific valley was visited by Mr. A. 

 Loudon, on the 4th of July, 1830. The bottom of the valley 

 was " covered with the skeletons of human beings, tygers, pigs, 

 deer, peacocks, and all sorts of birds." From some experiments 

 which were tried upon dogs and fowls, it appears that this valley 

 is what Avernus was supposed to be in ancient fables ; and that 

 the phenomenon of the Grotto del Cane exists there upon a great 

 scale. In our next, we shall give Mr. Loudon's account, as we 

 find it in Jameson's January number, for 1832. 



Mineralogy and Geology of Kova Scotia. — Messrs. Jackson and 

 Alger, have published, from the Memoirs of the American Aca- 

 demy, their remarks on the mineralogy and geology of Nova 

 Scotia, in a monograph of 116 pages, with a geological map, 

 and four coloured plates. This is the neatest and best executed 

 work on geology, which, as far as we have seen, has been got up 

 in the United States, and is printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

 We shall endeavour to give an early account of its contents. 



Volcanic Island of Pantellaria. — This small island lies between 

 Sicily and Africa : it is entirely volcanic. The external border 

 Is formed of a succession of beds of trachytic lava, of a light 

 greenish gray colour, resembli?ig gneiss in its granular, slaty struc- 



