200 Miscellanies. 



like fresh tanned sole leather, strongly impregnated with the ley from the 

 ashes, and a great many of the sinews and arteries were plain to be seen 

 on the earth and rocks, but in such a state as not to be moved, excepting 

 in small pieces, the size of a hand, which are now preserved in spirits. 



Should any doubts arise in the mind of the reader, of the correctness 

 of the above statement, he can be referred to more than twenty witnesses, 

 who were present at the time of digging. — Phil. Presbyterian. 



26. Discovery of Mummies at Durango, Blexico. — A million of mum- 

 mies, it is stated, have lately been discovered in the environs of Durango, 

 in Mexico. They are in a sitting posture, but have the same wrappings, 

 bands and ornaments as the Egyptians ; among them was found a poig- 

 nard of flint, with a sculptured handle, chaplets, necklaces, &LQ,., of alter- 

 nately colored beads, fragments of bones polished like ivory, fine worked 

 elastic tissues, (probably our modern India Rubber cloth,) moccasins 

 worked like those of our Indians, bones of vipers, &c. It is unknown 

 what kind of embalming was used, for the mummies above mentioned, 

 or whether they were preserved by nitrous depositions in the caves where 

 they were found. A fact of importance is stated, that necklaces are 

 of a marine shell found at Zacatecas, on the Pacific, where the Colum- 

 bus of their forefathers probably therefore landed from Hindostan or from 

 the Malay, or Chinese coast, or from their islands in the Indian ocean. — lb. 



27. Parallax of the star 61 Cygni. — A letter from Prof F. W. Bessel 

 to Sir J. Herschel, dated Konigsberg, Oct. 23, 1838, (contained in the 

 Lond. and Ed. Phil. Mag. Jan. 1839,) gives an account of observations 

 which he has made with the assistance of the excellent instruments of the 

 Konigsberg Observatory, which in his view, authorize the conclusion that 

 the double star 61 Cygni has an annual parallax of 0'.3136. The sum- 

 ming up of this important communication, we give in the writer's own 

 words. 



"As the mean error of the annual parallax of 61 Cygni (=:0".3136) 

 is only =tO".O202, and consequently not y^ of its value computed ; and 

 as these comparisons show that the progress of the influence of the par- 

 allax, which the observations indicate, follows the theory as nearly as can 

 be expected considering its smallness ; we can no longer doubt that this 

 parallax is sensible. Assuming it 0' .3136, we find the distance of the 

 star 61 Cygni from the sun 657700 mean distances of the earth from the 

 sun : light employs 10.3 years to traverse this distance. As the annual 

 proper motion of « Cygni amounts to 5.123 of a great circle, the relative 

 motion of this star and the sun must be considerably more than sixteen 

 semi-diameters of the earth's orbit, and the star must have a constant aber- 

 ration of more than 52." When we shall have succeeded in determining 

 the elements of the motion of both the stars forming the double star, round 



