MACKIE — ON rOSSIL BIRDS. 
419 
which seem to grow and increase from moisture and springs, we have 
already sufficient information conveyed to us by Vernherus ; we may, 
nevertheless, add here some facts deserving of notice which we have 
retained in our recollection. Amongst others, whilst the salt destroys 
common iron, there have been iron-implements and wood discovered 
after having been left for years in it. In a certain place there was a 
hen found which, together with her eggs, had been buried in salt and 
was thus preserved, and is still exhibited uncorrupted." 
The Latin text is given below : — 
" Salis Natura quce vegetatur et crescit in Transylvania. — Salis vero 
scissilis ac montani naturam ex humore aut succo id genus ahquo vegetari, 
ac crescere, satis quidem fidem facit idem Vernherus ; nec minus ex nos- 
tris praeclari aliqui testes, qui multa milii hae in parte memorata digna 
retulere, quae referani. Inter alia vulgare fere dum sal exciditur, relicta 
elapsis annis instrumenta ferrea, ac ligna in eis reperiri. Quodam loco 
gallina cum ipsis ovis incubans reperta est, quae eo obducta sale servata est, 
ac incorrupta etiam nunc ostenditur. Jam magna ex eis fodinis earbonum 
vis erui solet cum sale et vetustissimae roboris trabes. Sal gemmeus, qui 
lucidior est omni sale, cum in fundo reperitm*, indicium fodientibus est 
inf'erius nullum esse salem, aut impuram terram, ceu matricem reperiri. 
Abundat et vicina Polonia hujus generis native sale saxeo in syncero 
tamen, ac magis solido." 
The quotation which follows is from the work of JoH. Dan. Ma- 
JORis, Phil, et Med. D., ' Dissertatio Epistolica de Cancris et Ser- 
pentibus Petrefactis, ad Don. D. Philippum Jacobum Sachs a Le- 
wenheimb. Medicum in Rep. Patria Yratislaviensi, cui accessit Ee- 
sponsoria Dissertatio Historico-Medica ejusdem Philippi Jacobi 
Sachs a Lewenheimb. Pliil. et Med. D. et Collegii Naturae Cu- 
riosorum CoUegge de Miranda Lapidium Natura,' p. 38. — Jenae, 
1G64 :— 
" In the meantime we are certain that not only crabs (river- and 
sea-crabs), but also serpents, lizards, sea-urchins, star-fishes, scallops, 
cockles, oysters, shell-fish, clams, limpets, tellens and turbines, and 
vertebrae and spines of fishes, as well as healcs of birds and parts of 
other animals, as, for instance, teeth, nails, vertebrae, skulls, etc., 
through natural as well as artificial causes, are often encountered 
in the depths of the mountains and in the most hidden recesses 
of the earth, where neither man nor any other animal could ever pe- 
netrate ; nay, they are sometimes discovered even in the very middle 
of marbles,*that show not the slightest fissure, their bodies, either 
previously petrified or in their natural state, having been, so to say, 
buried in the abyss of the earth, at the occurrence of the Deluge 
or by some other cause, and which remaining there have acquired 
the hardness of stone, as might easily occur through the infiltration 
of saline springs penetrating through every portion of the earth. 
We observe also on ancient walls nitrous water oozing through and 
coagulating into white icicles of a conical form." 
The original runs — 
" Credamus interim uon cancros solum, sive marinos, sive fluviatiles, sed 
