AND OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES. 



55 



was beautifally varied by small sheets of water presenting the dazzUug reflections of 

 the solar rays. 



Following the desert on the north, I visited the gardens of a village called Madrea, 

 about four leagues from Cairo, where it was pretended that the Balm of Gilead grew 

 (Amyris Opobalsamum). This shrub had been naturalized there by one of the 

 Turkish Sultans, who had introduced several plants from the neighbourhood of 

 Mecca, at the time of the conquest of Arabia. It was in vain that I made diligent in- 

 quiries of the Arabs, in my attempts to find this plant, which Linnaeus places in 

 Egypt, and he probably received some specimens proceeding from these ancient 

 cultures. 



In the month of November, I visited the province of Fayoum, and found here 

 nearly the same plants as formerly stated to grow on the banks of the Nile. Among 

 those few which are not found in Lower Egypt, I observed the magnificent Asclepias 

 gigantea, and the Cyperus alopecuroides, which the natives use for fabricating their 

 pretty mats. 



At three leagues distance from Medinetta-el-Fayoum, there is a small town called 

 Fedamin, the most aacient in the province, and the environs of which arc tho best 

 cultivated. It is the only place where the Christians still make wine. The Vines 

 acquire here an enormous size, and their plantation mounts back probably to a very 

 remote age. 



The Olives, whose trunks are sometimes more than two metres (4^ feet) in dia- 

 meter, produce three or four thick branches which are about half a metro in diameter, 

 and 5 or 6 metres high. Around them spring up thousands of offsets, which are 

 cultivated at present to be planted out in tufts in the same manner as our Lilacs. 

 These trees appear to have been standing before the era of IVIahomet, for since that 

 epoch no plantation has been made in Egj^pt, excepting those of the reigning princes. 



Any person visiting the neighbourhood of Castle- Stuart can see the distance and 

 direction to which this stone has been removed, as the original spot is marked by a 

 wooden post, which was immediately put up as a substitute for the large stone, 

 which served as a march-stone between the property of Castle- Stuart, belonging to 

 the Earl of Moray, and the estate of Culloden, belonging to Duncan Forbes, Esq. 



GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



Account of the Travelled Stone near Castle- Stuart. — This mass of 

 stone, of which the following is a representation, is composed of granite, gneiss, 

 quartz, and other rocks of the primitive series, cemented together by a highly indo- 

 rated ferruginous claystone. 



It 13 apparently the very same as the roots through which the romantic stream 

 of Cawdor cuts its deep and narrow bed, near Cawdor Castle, in Nairnshire ; and no 

 rock of the same kind as the Travelled Stone is found nearer to it than seven or 

 eight miles. Its present situation is on the sands in the httle bay near Castle- Stuart, 

 on the Moray Frith ; and as it is left entirely dry by every receding tide, it is easily 

 approached over the sands at low water. It is about five feet high at its most ele- 

 vated pomt, calculating from the surface of the sand, and being to all appearance 

 about one foot imbedded in it. In its horizontal diameters it measures nearly six 

 feet in one way, by nearly seven in the other ; its weight being about eight tons. 



This large mass of stone is remarkable for having been removed from a situation 

 which it formerly occupied, about 260 yards farther to the E.S.E., by natural 

 means, and in the course of one night, to the position where it now stands. This 

 remarkable circumstance took place on the night between Friday the 19th and Satur- 

 day the 20th February 1799. There had been a long-continued and severe frost; 

 and the greater part of the little bay had been for some time covered with ice, which 

 was probably formed there the more readily, owing to the quantity of fi-esh water 

 from the stream running near Castle- Stuart emptying itself into this' inlet of the sea. 

 The stone was, by means of a projecting ledge all around it, bound fast by a vast 

 sheet of ice, of 18 inches in thickness; and when the influx of the tide took place it 

 was floated in the direction above described, and left in its present situation, the 

 wmd having blown with great violence in that direction. 



Alexander Macgillivray, of the Sea Mill of Petty, witnessed the fact of the stone 

 being removed, and was the first to discover its absence next morning after it took 

 place. This storm was accompanied by a heavy fall of snow, and as soon as it abated 

 he missed the stone, and perceived that it had been removed much nearer to low w ater 

 mai-k, to the position it now occupies. The circumstance soon became generally 

 known in the neighbourhood, and many flocked to the spot on the 20th to see it ; 

 among those was Mr Brodie of Brodie, at which time, the hole in which it had been 

 for so many years imbedded still remained to mark distinctly yesterday's site, whilst 

 Its tract across the flat oozy sand was very perceptible, extending in a line all the 

 way from its old to its new situation ; and an extensive cake of ice still adhered to the 

 stone, and attached to the projecting ledge. 



This singular phenomenon will serve as one mode of accounting for the remo-.al of 

 stones to a distance from then: original sites, which have long puzzled geologists. 



Woodside, near Airdrie, IQth March 1836. 

 Sir — I have in my possession the wing of a fly, encrusted with calcareous spar, 

 found last summer about twenty-four feet from the surface, and near the bottom of a 

 freestone rock twenty feet in thickness, at Fairybank, parish of Bothwell. It was 

 discovered by a lad while quarrying the rock in one of its horizontal joints, in a spot 

 from which a mass of stone about two tons in weight had just been removed, and 

 where it could not possibly have found its way from the surface. The wing is rather 

 larger than that of the dragon fly ; it is of a golden colour, and beautifully mem- 

 braneous. It retains ail the freshness of the natural wing, having underi^one no 

 petrifying process, and is set, as if by the ai-t of the Lapidary, in the spar. I am not 

 aware of any thing of the kind having hitherto been found in the coal formation, at 

 least 1 have read of none in Geological works. The reUc in my possession must at 

 all events be regarded as a very singular and beautiful monument of Insect existence at 

 a very remote geological epoch ; the rock in which it was found being that which 

 lies immediately above the lowest, save one, of our coal strata. I am, &c. 



(Signed) John Craiq- 



To Captain Thomas Brown. 



This sketch accompanied the above commuiaication. 



Scenert OF THE Val DEL BovE, MouNT .^TNA. — Let the reader picture to him- 

 self a large amphitheatre five miles in diameter, and surrounded on three sides by preci- 

 pices from two thousand to three thousand feet in height. If he has beheld the most 

 picturesque scene in the chain of the Pyrenees, the celebrated * cirque of Gavarnic^ 

 he may form some conception of the magnificent circle of the precipitous rocks, which 

 inclose on three sides the great plain of the Val del Bove. This plain has been 

 deluged by repeated streams of lava, and although it appears almost level when viewed 

 from a distance, it is in fact more uneven than the surface of the most tempestuous 

 sea. Besides the minor irregularities of the lava, the valley is in one part interrupted 

 by a ridge of rocks, two of which, Musara and Capra, are very prominent. It can. 

 hardly be said that they 



'* hke giants stand, 

 To sentinel enchanted land; * 



for although, like the Trossachs, they are of gigantic dimensions, and appear almost 

 isolated as seen from many points, yet the stern and severe grandeur of the scenery 

 which they adorn is not such as would be selected by a poet for a vale of enchant- 

 ment. The character of the scene would accord far better with Mdton's picture of 

 the infernal world; and if we imagine ourselves to behold in motion, in the darkness 

 of the night, one of those fiery cun-ents, which have so often traversed the great val- 

 ley, we may well recall 



" yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild. 

 The seat of desolation, void of light, 

 Save what the glimmering of these vivid flames 

 Cast pale and dreadful." 

 The face of the precipices is broken, in the most picturesque manner, by the ver 

 tical walls of lava which traverse them. The masses usually stand out in reUef, are 

 exceedingly diversified in form, and often of immense altitude. In the autumn, the 

 black outline may often be seen relieved by clouds of fleecy vapour which settle be- 

 hind them, and do not disperse till mid-day, continuing to fill the valley, while the sun 

 is shining on every other part of Sicily, and on the higher regions of JStna. 



As soon as the vapours begin to rise, the changes of scene are varied in the highest 

 de<n-e», difi'erent rocks bemg unveiled and hid by turns, and the sUmmit of iEtna 

 often breaking through the clouds for a moment with its dazzlmg snows, and being 

 then as suddenly withdrawn from the view. 



An unusual silence prevails, for there are no torrents dashing from the rocKS, nor 

 any movement of running water in this valley, such as may almost inval'iably be heard 

 in mountain regions. Every drop of water that falls from the heavens, or flows from 

 the melting ice and snow, is instantly absorbed by the porous lava; and such is tlie 

 dearth of springs, that the herdsman is compelled to supply his flocks, during the hot 

 season, from stores of snow laid up in hollows of the mountaif-s during winter. 



The stripes of green herbage and forest land, which have here and there escaped the 

 burninf lavas, serve by contrast to heighten the desolation of the scene. When I 

 visited the valley, nine years after the eruption of 1819, I saw hundreds of trees, or 

 rather the white skeletons of trees, on the borders of the black lava, the trunks and 

 branches being all leafless, and depiivcd of their bark by the scorching heat emitted 

 from the melted rock; an image recalling those beautiful lines — 

 *' As when heaven's fire 

 Hath scath'd the forest oaks, or mountain pines, 

 AVith singed top their stately growth, though bare. 

 Stands on the blasted heath." 



Principles of Geology, ly Charles Lyell. 



Ignes Fatui. We know that animal substances, in a state of putrefaction, always 



emit phosphorus, which, taking fire from the contact of the atmosphere, produces hght 

 and wandering flames. Such is probably the origin of those Ignes fatui which flutter 

 at night over church-yards and fields of battle, and which have given rise to pre- 

 tended apparitions of spirits in churches, whore it is the pernicious and superstitious 



