VOL. Xixj PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 21§ 



(famous for its fine white sand) near Tonne (a village not far from Erfurt in 

 Thuringia) they met with some remarkably large bones, one of which weighed 

 iglb.; they afterwards found a globular extremity, or head of a bone inserted 

 in its acetabulum; it was larger than a man's head, and weighed gib.: after- 

 wards a bone resembling a thigh-bone, and weighing 32lb. Renewing tlieir 

 researches, after a thaw at the beginning of the year, they met with a spina 

 dorsi with the ribs joined to it, and still deeper in the sand they found two larger 

 balls or globular extremities, with the bones belonging to them, viz. the bones 

 of the fore feet ; they next met with an os humeri, 4 feet long, and 2| spans 

 round ; afterwards the vertebrge of the neck ; and last of all the prodigious head 

 itself, having 4 dentes molares, each weighing 12lb. and 2 large tusks,* mea- 

 suring 1-i- spans in circumference, and projecting 8 feet from the head.-f- 



and the use he made of it to assist those who sought for information concerning the writings of others, 

 induce us not to let his name occur without subjoining to it some biographical notice. 



He was born at Florence in 16"63, and was apprenticed to a goldsmith, an occupation which ill- 

 accorded with his love of learning. He therefore quitted it on the death of his parents, and devoted 

 himself entirely to study, expending the whole of his small finances in the purchase of books. Al- 

 though he did not confine his attention to any one class of writers, but took a most varied and exten- 

 sive range, yet he never forgot what he had once read. He would remember not only the leading 

 facts, arg\.iments, and dates, but (as his biographers assert) the very words of an author, even when 

 there was no very striking peculiarity or beauty of style. The following anecdote, which indeed, as 

 the editors of the General Biographical Dictionary have remarked, is hardly credible, is told of him 

 by Mr. Spence in his Parallel between him and Rob. Hill. " A gentleman to make trial of the 

 force of his memory lent him a MS. he was going to print. Some time after it was returned, the 

 gentleman came to him with a melancholy face and pretended it was lost. Magaliabechi being re- 

 quested to recollect what he remembered of it, wrote the whole, without missing a word or varying 

 the spelling." The Grand Duke of Florence, Cosmo III. made him his librarian, a situation of all 

 others the best adapted to a person of his studious turn. In this situation he had full opportunity of 

 gratifying his passion for reading, and at the same time of rendering considerable services to many 

 literary characters then living, who frequently consulted him (for his judgment is said to have been 

 scarcely inferior to his memory) respecting the best writers on the several subjects which engaged 

 their atiention. Magliabechi died at the age of SI. In his mode of living he was so extremely penu- 

 rious, that he saved out of his salary, as librarian, enough to purchase a large collection of books, 

 which was further augmented by presents of works from various authors. This library he left by his 

 will for the use of the public, together with a sum of money for a commodious building, &c. By 

 the munificence of the Medicis, considerable additions were made to this endowment ; so that the 

 Magliabechian library, not only in regard to the number and value of the books it contained, but also 

 in regard to the spaciousness and elegance of the building wherein it was deposited, might bear a 

 comparison with any in Florence. A collection of letters, amounting to 5 vols, was published, under 

 his name, at Florence, in 1745. They consist of letters, for the most part complimentary, addressed 

 to him by some of the most learned men of his time. 



* In a subsequent part of this letter it is mentioned that each of these tusks weighed lOOlb. and upwards. 



-j- An enumeration of the rest of the bones that were found is afterwards given, together with the 

 dimensions of such as were not too much decayed to be measured. 



B-F 2 



