400 Miscellanies. 



strata, that they never can have been united. The European side 

 is composed entirely of trachyte and analogous rocks, and the Asiatic 

 of transition limestone. The trachytes have a blue ground with 

 white crystals, and extend in width of several leagues as far as Bel- 

 grade and Kila. If the Bosphorus diminish, as reported, it is proba- 

 bly owing to the effusion of the trachytic rocks on the European 

 side. — Athemeum, May, 1837. 



25. Silex. — M. Turpin has submitted the silex sent from Berlin 

 by M. Ehrenberg, to microscopic observation. The magnifying 

 power amounted to 260, and this gentleman found, that the semi- 

 opal of Berlin is a conglomerate of a number of siliceous particles 

 and fragments of organic remains, the color of which varies from 

 transparent white, and passes through yellow, to the deepest and 

 most opaque brown. M. Turpin recognized four different bodies ; 

 the first of which he referred to the genus Gaillonella of M. Bory 

 St. Vincent, or Conferva moniliformis ; the second he considered as 

 a different species of the same genus ; the third was a mixture of tu- 

 bular filaments, divided into cells at rare intervals, and remains of in- 

 fusoria ; the fourth was not organic, but served as a basis for render- 

 ing the whole solid. The Silex pyromaque of Delitzsch, is much 

 richer in organic productions, offering some very remarkable forms, 

 probably belonging to the eggs of Polypi. — lb. 



26. White Race of Atlas. — M. Guyon, chief surgeon to the 

 African array, writes to M. Bureau de la Malle, that at Bougia 

 there is now living, a woman originally from the interior, supposed 

 to be descended from the white tribe of Mount Aureps. She is at 

 most twenty six or twenty-eight years of age, of very agreeable 

 physiognomy, blue eyes, fair hair, beautiful teeth, and has a very 

 delicate white skin. She is married to the Imaun of the mosques, 

 Sidi Harned, by whom she has three children, bearing a strong re- 

 semblance to herself. M. Arago observes, that these white people 

 are not so rare in that part of the world as might be supposed, for 

 when he was going from Bougia to Algiers, in 1808, by land, he 

 saw women of all ages in the different villages, who were quite white, 

 had blue eyes and fair hair, but that the nature of his journey did not 

 permit him to stop and ask if they came from any peculiar tribe. — lb. 



