46 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1703. 



in it a little school for public exercises, and a small library belonging to their 

 college; the rest of the students, except 100 maintained by the king in small 

 colleges, live at lodgings in the city, as at Leyden and other universities abroad. 

 There are in this university, erected about 200 years since, about 10i)0 stu- 

 dents, and sometimes they have had near 1500. 



The university library, over one of their churches, in one large room, con- 

 sists of several libraries, the gift of particular men, which are kept apart, with 

 the benefactors' names over them in capital letters. The royal library, belong- 

 ing to the king, consists of a great variety of books, in good condition, and 

 well chosen, in all languages: the books of each country being placed by them- 

 selves; the room is large and well built, and has a large gallery supported by 

 pillars on each side. If Gudius's library at Gluckstadt be added to this, as I 

 was told it will be, this library may be reckoned in the first rank of the Euro- 

 pean libraries. 



The king's chambers of rarities are in all 8, large and well built, over the 

 royal library ; they are furnished with great variety of natural and artificial curi- 

 osities. The first contains coins and medals, gold and silver, modern and an- 

 tique; Grecian, Roman, Danish, and Oldenburgh, besides those of other Eu- 

 ropean nations, distinctly kept by themselves, making altogether a very valuable 

 collection. Among the natural curiosities which are in the other chambers, the 

 most remarkable are: 



1. The petrified child: being the same that Bartholine mentions in his Hist. 

 Anat. of which Paraeus, Licetus de Monstris, &c. give the history at large. 

 This child was cut out of its mother's belly at Sens in Champagne, Anno 1582, 

 where it was supposed to have lain about 28 years. That it is a human foetus, 

 and not artificial, is visible to the eye; the upper part of it is of a gipseous na- 

 ture, not so hard as the lower, the thighs and buttocks being hard and perfect 

 stone as can be, of a red colour, and of a grain and superficies exactly like those 

 taken out of the bladder. I had the curiosity to have it near me, and touched 

 and felt it all over, ft was first conveyed to Paris, where it was bought by a 

 goldsmith of Venice, of whom Frederick the Third, King of Denmark, pur- 

 chased it, and added it to his rarities. 2. Two elephants' teeth, weighing 150 

 lb. each. 3. Several heads of hares, with divers sorts of horns, brought out 

 of Saxony. 4. An egg^ said to be laid by a woman, of the ordinary size of a 

 pullet's egg. This Ol. Wormius tells us was sent him by very good hands, and 

 confirmed by people of credit; he further tells us, the woman brought forth 

 two eggs, with the usual child-birth pains, the neighbours being called in to 

 her assistance, they broke the first, and found a yolk and a white, as in that of 

 a hen; the second was preserved and sent to him. Vid. Mus. Worm. p. M. 



