230 ; 



very steep mountain, over which it is said that Julius 

 Caesar cut a road through an opening or pass, which 

 the Romans called Summum Pyrenaeum, to facilitate 

 the communication with Spain, the following inscrip- 

 tion has been discovered, and reported by M. Le Hoi, 

 Engineer des Ports, et Arsenaux de la Marine. 



I. IAL. IERNUS CER 



Q VIR BIS HANC 



RIAM RESTITVIT 

 LAM IILMV 



S. AMICUS C. 



This inscription is represented as being a little ef- 

 faced by time ; not however so much, but that M. Le 

 Roi obtained from it a correct copy, and which Pallas- 

 sau has published as copied.* 



From these facts, what is the inference to be drawn? 

 What man in his sober senses will, on mature reflec- 

 tion, pretend that the Pyrennees, or any other chain 

 of mountains, are experiencing a degradation of ten 

 inches, in a hundred years, or one twentieth part of it, 

 by the disintegration of the rocks, while the simple 

 characters of which those inscriptions are composed, 

 and superficially cut in limestone, have remained ex- 

 posed to the operations of all the agents to which rocks 

 in general are liable, for more than eighteen hundred 

 years, (if executed by the Romans of which there can 

 be no doubt) without being effaced or materially injur- 

 ed? Perhaps it will be urged, that they have remain- 



* Mineral des Pyrennees, page 80. 



