Miscellanies. 389 



This cave is in a compact dolomite, about thirty five metres above 

 lake Gardon, w^hich washes its base. Its opening is an arch, eight 

 metres high, which is prolonged in a vestibule about four metres wide. 

 This communicates with several galleries, the two largest of which, 

 situated one above the other, grow narrower as we advance. The 

 lower one, at about fifteen metres from the vestibule, has a floor of 

 stalagmite, under which is found, in the midst of a bed of mud, like 

 that of the bed of the lake, human bones, fragments of earthen ware, 

 some of which are extremely coarse, and bones of ruminating ani- 

 mals belonging to existing species. In some of the recesses are 

 found, mixed pell mell with the same remains, fragments of bones of 

 extinct species, but that this mud is of a recent period, is proved by 

 the fact, that in the same spots in which the antediluvian bones are 

 found, are also found human bones, which might also have been re- 

 garded as antediluvian but for a little bronze statue found among 

 them, evidently of Roman fabrication. — Rev. Encyc. Juin, 1832. 



2. Prof. Hitchcock'' s Report on the Geology of Massachusetts. — 

 The reviewer of this report, in the Rev. Encyc. Aug. 1 832, observes, 

 that those who consider the English system of abandoning scientific 

 improvement and researches to individual enterprise, as the best of 

 all systems, and who censure the continental governments, for devo- 

 ting the public funds to such purposes, will probably be surprised to 

 see one of the states of New England, executing at its own expense, 

 such a work as that of Prof. Hitchcock ; and that a single glance at 

 this report, is sufficient to convince any one of the utility of such a 

 work, to the state which has undertaken it ; and to regret that there 

 is so very small a part of the French territory, whose geological consti- 

 tution is as well known to the public, as is now the state of Massachu- 

 setts. France has the greater cause to regret her being distanced in 

 this race by America, from her having a corps of mining engineers, 

 who if they had the means, would, in a very short time furnish a work 

 of the same kind, still more complete, of each of the departments. 



The same Journal, in remarking on the Geology of JVova Scotia, 

 ^c, by T.Jackson andF. Mger, adverts to the agreeable surprise, 

 which Humboldt experienced, on debarking at Cumana, on finding 

 in the Spanish Governor of that province, a man who was capable of 

 sustaining a scientific conversation ; and to his observation, that the 

 sweet name of one's country pronounced in a distant land, cannot give 

 more delight to the ear of one who has been long absent from it, than 



