36 
THE GEOLOQIST. 
to consult works of a higher order ; and, if we mistake not, such has 
been the author s intention. 
We are grieved to learn the death of the celebrated traveller, 
Madame Ida Pfciffer, who has been known for some time to our English 
readers by her " Visit to Iceland,^' " The Scandinavian JVorfh," " Travels 
in the Holy Land, Egypt and Italy" or perhaps better still by "A 
Wojnans Journey round the World, and "A Woinan^s Second Journey 
round the Woi ld." The writings of the late Madame Ida PfeifFer are 
more adapted for the general reader than the scientific world. She 
appears to have travelled from pure curiosity to see the different places 
she has visited, and her works are naturally of a very interesting 
character. It is rarely that she speaks of the geological formations 
of the numerous spots on which her feet have trod, though in her 
" Visit to Iceland" for instance, she speaks of what she saw at the 
Geysers, without, however, bringing away any new scientific fact. 
Here is a passage from her work entitled " A Woman's Journey round 
the World,'' which is not uninteresting in a mineralogical sense, and 
which will perhaps give an idea of her style of writing. Speaking 
of the environs of Valparaiso, she says : — " Persons discovering 
mines are highly favoured, and liave full right of property to their 
discover^'^, being obliged only to notify the same to the government. 
This license is pushed to such an extent, that if, for instance, a person 
can advance any plausible grounds for asserting that he has found a 
mine under a church, or a house, &c. he is at liberty to have either 
pulled down provided he is rich enough to pay for the damage. 
About fifteen years ago a donkey-driver accidentally hit upon a pro- 
ductive silver-mine. He was driving several asses over the mountain 
when one of them ran away. He seized a stone and was about to 
throw it after the animal, but stumbled and fell to the ground, while 
the stone escaped from his grasp and rolled away. Rising in a great 
passion, he snatched up a second stone, and had stretched his arm to 
throw it, when he was surprised by its enormous weight. He looked 
at it more closely, and perceived that it was streaked with veins of pure 
silver. He preserved the stone as a treasure, marked the spot, drove 
his asses home, and then communicated his discovery to one of his 
friends who was a miner. . . . lu a few years both were rich men." 
But, to return to Geology. — At Leghorn, recently, a thick smoke was 
perceived to arise from the water in the new port, and it was feared 
that a vessel was on fire; it turned out, however, that it was occasioned 
by a submarine volcano, and the authorities deemed it advisable to 
remove at once the gunpowder magazine to a distance. We hope to 
I'eceive more news of this by and by. 
In one of the recent meetings of the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, 
M. Marie Rouault called attention to what he supposed to be the 
remains of some vertebrate animals from the Silurian schists of 
St. Leonhard in Brittany. M. de Verneuil, having subsequently 
visited the locality, has obtained several of these fossils, called " eels" 
by the quarrymen, and finds that they are merely pyritous casts of 
I 
