SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
261 
which I could reconstruct the animal. It had been crushed, so that there 
remained only the inferior portion of the carapace, which gave passage to 
the humerus. The great groove which is seen here is the right humeral 
groove of the animal. Posteriorly we find the portions the sternum, viz., 
the episternal, the space covered by fragments of the hyosternal and hypo- 
sternal, and finally the xiphosternal.” In this manner M. Valenciennes 
proceeded, step by step, to prove to his audience that the bones before 
them were those of a huge fresh-water Emys, which, in compliment to its 
discoverer, M. Hebert, he proposes to term, Testudo Heberti . 
The Stone Age in the Pyrenees. — Messrs. Garrigon and Filhol have just 
laid before the French Academy the results of their explorations of the 
caverns in some of the mountain passes of the Pyrenean chain. They 
discovered in several caves large quantities of bones, belonging principally 
to the following animals : — Gervus elaplius, a large species of ox, and 
a much smaller one, a sheep, an antelope, a chamois, Sus scrofa and a 
smaller domesticated species, the horse, the wolf, the dog, the badger, the 
hare, and two birds whose species were undetermined. Besides these 
there were found weapons of stone, and some which had been prepared 
from the bones of animals ; twenty millstones formed of leptinite, granite, 
and syenite, and of various sizes ; and numerous fragments of a rude sort 
of pottery containing fragments of quarts and mica. From these facts 
these two geologists draw the conclusion beneath 
“ In the Ariege section of the Pyrenees (and doubtless also throughout 
the entire chain) there has been a pre-historic population, whose habits and 
state of civilization were like those of the race of the Stone age in Switzer- 
land. This race inhabited large and airy caverns, fed upon the flesh of 
animals in which the country abounded, and j manufactured weapons of 
the harder portions of the bones and of stone. They probably cultivated 
wheat like their Swiss brethren, and doubtless the mill-stones found were 
employed to grind it. They were unacquainted with the metals.” — Comptes 
Rendas , vol. lvii. No. 20. 
Cause of Earthquake Shocks. — This has been attributed by Mr. Mackie, 
the well-known editor of The Geologist , not to the outpouring of molten 
matter from the bowels of the earth, but to the cooling down and crystal- 
lization of the fluid lava. It is well-known to chemists that during the 
crystallization of certain compounds, in one stage of the process, a 
perceptible series of sounds may be distinguished. Manufacturers of 
crystalline bodies on a large scale are even more familiar with this 
phenomenon ; and we have been informed that in the preparation of some 
mineral compounds very loud sounds, like those resulting from explosions, 
are heard as soon as the solid deposit begins to separate from the liquid 
mass in which it was dissolved. 
Composition of the Water of the Dead Sea. — The water of the Lacus 
Asphaltites of the ancients contains, according to the recent researches of 
M. Roux, so large a quantity of bromides and bromine compounds, that it 
is worthy of consideration by all photographic and other chemists who 
desire to render these substances commercially cheaper and purer than 
they are at present. In one hundred parts of Dead Sea water there are 
9*466 parts of chloride of magnesium ; 6*126 of chloride of sodium ; 3*152 
