62 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
lie found a lizard imbedded in the stone. 
It was about an inch and a quarter long, 
of a brownish yellow colour, and bad a 
round head, with bright sparkling pro¬ 
jecting eyes. It was apparently dead, 
but after being about five minutes ex¬ 
posed to the air it showed signs of life. 
It soon ran about with much celerity; 
and after half an hour was brushed off 
the stone and killed. Whep found, it 
was coiled up in a round cavity of its 
own form, being an exact impression 
of the animal. There were about four¬ 
teen feet of earth above the lock, and 
the block in which the lizard was 
found was seven or eight feet deep in 
the rock; so that the whole depth of 
the animal from the surface was twen¬ 
ty-one or twenty-two feet. The stone 
had no fissure, was quite hard, and one 
of the best to be got from the quarry of 
Cullaloe—reckoned perhaps the best in 
Scotland. 
Count de Bourdon’s Mineralogy 
states, that during the years 1788,7, and 
8, they were occupied near Aix in Pro¬ 
vence, in France, in quarrying stone 
for rebuilding, upon a vast scale, the 
Palace of Justice. The stone was a 
limestone of a deep grey, and of that 
kind which is tender when it comes 
out of the quarry, hut hardens by ex¬ 
posure to the air. The strata were 
separated from one another by a bed of 
sand mixed with clay, more or less 
calcareous. The first which were 
wrought presented no appearance of 
any foreign bodies; but, after the work¬ 
men had removed the first ten beds, 
they were astonished, on taking away 
the eleventh, to find its inferior sur¬ 
face, at the depth of forty or fifty feet, 
covered with shells. The stone of this 
bed having been removed, as they were 
taking away a stratum of argillaceous 
sand, which separated the eleventh bed 
from the twelfth, they found stumps of 
columns and fragments of stones half 
wrought, the stone being exactly similar 
to that of the quarry. They found 
moreover coins, handles of hammers, 
and other tools, or fragments of tools, 
in wood. But what principally com¬ 
manded their attention, was a board 
abou t one inch thick and seven or eight 
feet long; it was broken into many 
pieces, of which none were missing, 
and it was possible to join them again 
one to another, and to restore to the 
board or plate its original form, which 
was that of the boards of the same kind 
used by the masons and quarry men : 
it was worn in the same manner. 
[ Au g. i, 
rounded and waving upon the edges. 
The stones which were completely or 
partly wrought, had not at all changed 
in their nature, but the fragments of 
the board, and the instruments, and 
the pieces of instruments of wood, had 
been changed into agates , which were 
very fine and agreeably coloured. 
Here then (observes Count B.) we have 
traces of a work executed by the hand 
of man, placed at the depth of fifty 
feet, and covered with eleven beds of 
compact limestone—every thing tend¬ 
ing to prove that this work had been 
executed upon the spot where the traces 
existed. The presence of man had then 
preceded the formation of this stone, 
and that very considerably, since he 
had already arrived at such a degree of 
civilization that the arts were known 
to him, and that he wrought stone and 
formed columns out of it. 
FRANCE. 
At a late meeting of the Academy of 
Sciences, M. Cuvier presented to the 
Society the head of Des Cartes, which 
M. Berzelius had forwarded from Swe¬ 
den. He read the history of (he head, 
and the details which proved its au¬ 
thenticity. M. Cuvier also produced a 
picture of Des Cartes, and remarked 
that the bony parts seemed of the 
same character as those in the head 
sent by M. Berzelius, which gave 
strength to the idea that it was the ge¬ 
nuine head of that great philosopher. 
The academy deferred its decision on 
the means of preserving it as a preeious 
relic. 
Intelligence has arrived relative to 
M. Dreux, architect of Paris, now in 
the Levant. In September last he was 
at Athens, returned from his excur¬ 
sions in the different parts of Greece 
and on the coast of Asia Minor. He 
lias discovered and measured a great 
number of monuments hitherto un¬ 
known, or but. slightly examined ; 
among others, several ancient theatres 
in better preservation than any edifice 
of the kind in Italy. He has con¬ 
structed plans and panoramic views 
that will give a just idea of their situa¬ 
tion and the surrounding districts. 
The Lancasterian system makes a 
rapid progress in France; in the de¬ 
partment of the Moselle there are, of 
an age to go to school, 2.7,507 hoys, and 
24,593 girls ; of these 23,918 boys, and 
21,040 girls, attend the schools. 
The printing presses of Paris are at 
this time in great activity : many great 
and expensive series are in course of 
publication, 
