' Natural-Historical Collections. 69. 
ber 1829, when, after 7 o’clock, two very strong shocks, whose motions appear 
to have been vertical, occurred at Calcutta. On the 2Ist of March 1829, the 
first shock of a severe earthquake was felt at Murcia in Spain, and followed by 
others, which rent the earth, and swallowed up or destroyed more than 3600 
houses in the province. .The deep communications of this earthquake are at- 
tested by the geognostic structure of the country, which is very modern, and 
not volcanic, (calcareous and gypseous formations, soft clay, and yellow sand.) 
Its motion, nevertheless, appears, from the only published accounts, to have been 
vertical. Its progress was marked by shocks at Colmar (Upper Rhine) on the 
night of August the 7th ; at Poutroye and at Beffort the shock was stronger, and 
accompanied by a noise like distant thunder. The earthquake was also felt (ac- 
cording to a letter from the Minister of the Interior to the Academy of Paris) at 
Saint Dié and at Strasburg. The shock felt at Copenhagen was on the 19th of Au- 
gust 1829, at about half-past three o’clock. Its direction was north-west ; it lasted 
some seconds, and was preceded by much noise. The barometer rose at 12 o’clock 
three inches, but was not affected at the moment of the shock. Copenhagen was 
similarly affected by the earthquake at Lisbon, but has not in the interval felt any 
other shocks. 
Star-stones of Chemnitz.—An admirable monograph on the psarolites, or star- 
stones of Chemnitz, has appeared from the pen of Anthony Sprengel, * being an 
amplification of his thesis at the university of Halle. Having remarked a great 
similarity between the psarolites and living ferns, it occurred to Mr. Sprengel 
that this curious fossil, as to whose origin doubt has so long existed, might be. 
the remains of arborescent plants; and his continued observations tending to sub- 
stantiate his supposition, he has arranged the different species according to the 
method of Brongniart. 
All the specimens which have been hitherto discovered, are referable to Brong- | 
niart’s first class, ‘‘ Trunks of trees, whose internal structure is distinguishable,” 
and to the genus Endogenites, ‘‘ Trunks of fossil trees, composed of fasciculi of 
secreting vessels ;”? though the two species, (KE. bacillaris and E. echinatus,) 
mentioned by Brongniart, (Mem. du Mus. V. and VIII.) differ entirely from the 
Psarolithi. M. Sprengel was unable to follow Sternberg, who subdivides the Psa~ 
rolithi into two species, which he names Palmacites macroporum and P. micro- 
porum ; Ist, because his system is built on analogies with living plants, which 
is inadmissible ; and 2d, because Brongniart has described a genus under the 
name Palmacites, altogether distinct from the Psarolithi. Accordingly, a new 
systematic name was necessary for the Psarolithi, which, moreover, from the great 
difference between them, could not be associated under one species. 
The genus is therefore thus divided : 
I. Endogenites Psarolithus. 
Char. Spec. nd. tubulis (fasciculis vasorum secretorum, Brongn.) pa- 
rallelis cylindricis compressiusculisve, tubulos numerosos exiguos intus 
gerentibus. 
Found scattered about the fields near Chemnitz in Saxony, a district abound- 
ing in porphyry, red psammite, (sandstone,) and lithanthrace, (secondary forma.- 
tions.) They occur also in matrices of siliceous lithanthrace, which lie under ar- 
gillaceous schist and psammite. 
In opposition to Brongniart and all other recent writers, who refer the psaro- 
lites to the family of Palms, on account of the similarity of internal structure, 
Sprengel suspects them to belong to the Arborescent Ferns, and comparative sec- 
tions of the End. Psarol. and the Polypodium aureum and P. crassifolium, are 
exhibited in a plate at the end of the pamphlet. ° 
II. Endogenites Solenites. 
Char. Spec. End. tubulis minoribus majoribusque, minoribus End. Psa- 
rolithi, majoribus superne convergentibus attenuatis, cylindricis, gerenti- 
* Commentatio de Psarolithis, ligni fossilis genere. Auctore Antonio Spren- 
gel, Phil. Doct. Hale 1828.. pp. 42..12mo. 

