Journey from Vienna. 93 



What struck me the most in these bituminous lignites, was 

 the very strong and nauseating smell which they emitted, not 

 a little resembling truffle at the height. This becomes insup- 

 portable in a chamber where fresh samples are stored j in the 

 mine it is qualified by circumstances, perhaps by the muriatic 

 acid. Indeed, it is not easy to discern it there ; the smell that 

 is perceptible, resembles what we find in places confined and 

 not frequently cleaned. 



Another more remarkable singularity is, that this smell is 

 exactly like what some species of the medusa, molluscse, and 

 marine animals, thrown up by the waves on the shore, exhale. 

 The alcohol, in which these animals are preserved, takes the 

 same smell very strong, especially when the decanters are not 

 well stopped up. This is the more noticeable, as I have never 

 observed any vegetable putrefaction with the like property. 

 One instance may form an exception, certain fossile madre- 

 pores of Italy, that have been extracted from depots as modern 

 as those of Villiczka. 



The shells are found in the saliferous argile, but never in 

 the salt itself. The largest that I have seen are bivalves, from 

 four to five lines in diameter (a line is the twelfth part of an 

 inch). Such as I collected were, apparently, of the genus 

 tellines, but they would not bear handling, dissolving instantly 

 into dust. Besides the bivalves, the argilous mass contained 

 an infinite number of fluted, microscopic univalves, very much 

 resembling those found in immense quantities in the fine sands 

 of our seas, and in certain marine depots that have not been 

 very long discovered, in the environs of Paris. 



Though 1 could find no remains of animals in the pure salt, 

 there appears in the king's private cabinet of mineralogy, at 

 Paris, a very distinct fragment of madrepore, in a portion of 

 salt that looks like the green salt of Villiczka. 



The circumstances above noted, of lignites, or bituminous 

 wood, found in large quantities in the mines of Villiczka, with 

 the fluted shells, &c. are the more remarkable, as we know of 

 nothing similar in other saliferous depots. 



Here, also, I might observe, that in certain mountains to the 

 north, on the banks of the Vistula, in the middle regions of 

 which are lead mines, are calcareous substances, exactly 

 similar to such as appear in the mountain Lime, as it is called, 

 of Derbyshire. To which may be added, that all the depots of 

 salt, at Villiczka and Bochnia, with all those in Gallicia and 

 the Buckawine, as well as in Hungary, are found uniformly in 

 one position, i. e. at the foot of athain of mountains. Also, 

 that the saliferous depots of Poland are always on the borders 

 of plains, and only at the height of about 760 feet above the 



