as it may seem to the fast and trot-accustomed English rider. But the newly arrived colonist, who has been used to the saddle in England, has to chafe a great deal before he can subside into the proper colonial pace. feet pass in the course of a day. For some ten or twelve inches of breadth, the soil continues perfectly bare of grass. During the dry season of winter, even the larger rivers are generally fordable on horseback at convenient places, to which the frequented paths invariably lead; the water rarely reaching to the stirrup of the rider. All that is necessary for safety, is just to be acquainted with the line of the crossing, which is far from being always the most direct course from bank to bank, and to be somewhat careful of the large stones lying scattered along the river-bed. In the summer, however, the case is very different, the stream being then both deep and strong. Fatal accidents occasionally happen in crossing the swollen rivers at this season. It is not at all an unusual thing for the young colonist to have no other means, for some months in the year, of getting to his apportioned grant of three thousand acres of land, than by between his property and the bay, or the capital, he has to strip to the skin, and trust himself to the mercy of a turbulent current rushing along at the rate of some seven or eight miles in the hour. Even expert swimmers are very apt to get hampered by the force of these rapid waters. If they attempt to head against the course of the stream, they suddenly find themselves limb-bound, their arms becoming powerless, and seeming to be fastened down to their sides. The only chance of safety, in this disagreeable predicament, is to shun the unequal conflict, and go with the tide. The fastened limbs are immediately set free, as if by a stroke of magic, upon turning down in the current, and the swimmer so becomes able to work his way by slow degrees to the opposite shore. When travellers do not happen to be bold swimmers, they are conveyed across these unfordable rivers by a very ingenious contrivance: a number of reeds are lashed together into a compact buoy-shaped bundle, and this is launched into the water. The passenger places himself astride of the reed-horse, and throws himself prone upon it, embracing it tightly with his arms. An expert native swimmer then pushes the floating buoy across the stream with one hand, while he urges himself onward with the other, and with his legs. The ease with which the most skilful natives drive this laden buoy across rapidly flowing water is very surprising. Native women may often be seen sitting bolt upright upon the reed-float as they are ferried across. The traveller's horse is led after his master by a native attendant, and the saddle and clothes are conveyed over dry by being held aloft on one hand, while the other three limbs are employed in keeping the carrier of the burden afloat; or they are mounted upon a miniature mast stepped into the bundle of floating reeds. The ford, the reedhorse, and swimming, are nearly the only resources of the traveller who has any long progress to make in Natal. There are, of course, no bridges, saving over narrow brooks and rivulets in the near neighbourhood of towns; and upon the inland waters, boats are as rare as bridges. If a man chances to have a crazy boat at his drift, he advertises the fact in the newspapers, as a great argument why wanderers should direct their steps his way. Where there is much wagon-traffic, a bare road is soon worn into the grass, by the grating and pressure of the broad wheels, and by the treading of the numerous treck-oxen. In other situations, the route is only marked by the Caffre path, which is a narrow track laid down upon the soil by naked human feet, and but just perceptible amid tall herbage. This path is nearly always practicable to horses-that is, to the horses of the land. Now the track runs through the fragrant and red-brown tambooti grass, looking for a long distance very much like a furrow in an English cornfield of unusual luxuriance. Now it strikes obliquely down a verdant slope of closer herbage, thickly sprinkled with strange shrubs and flow-swimming such an obstacle. Every time he passes ers, amid which the red blossoms of the indigo are not unfrequent. Now it crosses a running stream, with the gurgling water knee-deep, and with the position of the ford only pointed out by the visible trace of the narrow path descending and ascending the opposite banks. Now it climbs a steep hill, with dark green clumps of the prickly aloe studding the sward; and with bushy trees fringing the upper slopes wherever the swelling surface is grooved by ravines, the evergreen and laurel-foliaged yellow-wood standing boldly out here and there above the smaller growth. Now it skirts a kraal of native huts, looking like a circular cluster of huge and flattened bee-hives, from the low portal of one of which a white-bearded and grisly patriarch of dusky skin, on all-fours, protrudes his head; a broad-shouldered, middle-aged athlete sits on the ground, leaning against another of them, his hands engaged in fashioning the shaft of an assegai; and strange little naked, slim-limbed, and protuberant-bodied children lounge listlessly around. Now the path turns sharply from the kraal, passes amid the waving stalks of a mealie ground, planted in careless and unsymmetrical confusion, and now plunges suddenly into a rugged ravine, water-carved from the solid stone. The craggy staircase is dry, but the eye can perceive at a glance where the rapid torrent leaps down in the wet season from step to step. To the inexperienced neophyte in colonial affairs, the way seems altogether impracticable to equine legs; and the notion of scaling the steep and abrupt track seems very much like that of undertaking to ride up the staircase of the Monument. The horse, however, takes altogether a different view of the matter, and obviously knows very well what he is about. He gathers himself nervously together, and in an instant is among the boulders and fragments, picking his way with most praiseworthy care, and availing himself of every convenient crevice and level space. Arrived at the summit of the steep ascent, the track crosses a gentle slope of grass, and passes through a wild chaos of huge blocks of rolled trap, that lie scattered along the hill-top for some two or three miles. The prospect in the direction of the slant of the hill is now a glorious valley, eight or ten miles across, with a winding stream seen by glimpses in its hollow, and with green hills on the further side capped with dark foliage, and fringed with ravines, tinted of the same deep hue by the trees that completely choke up their furrows. The land is everywhere intersected by these native paths; but how it is that they are kept open, and rendered available as clues through the unknown labyrinth, is one of the mysteries of the region. It is not at all surprising that a heavy wagon, dragged by a dozen oxen, should leave a scar in the sward, which it takes some days to obliterate; but Caffre footpaths remain indelibly engraved from year to year, where, perhaps, not a dozen naked and soft-skinned The high road between the port of Natal and Maritzburg is, upon the whole, a very creditable thoroughfare, and is improving every day. It has been almost entirely made by the military engineers; and the shaking which has to be endured upon it in wagon-travelling, is more the result of the impossibility of guiding a team of fourteen headstrong oxen, than a consequence of its actual roughness. The journey from the coast to the capital might be performed upon it very pleasantly with a spring-carriage and horses. There are only two or three places in which rough and steep drifts have to be crossed where any serious difficulty would have to be encountered. This high road, after crossing the Berea, and passing through a few miles of picturesque busli, gets into a country of green swelling hills. For some distance it runs upon the crest of a kind of spur, with valleys on either side; then it traverses two successive steps or terraces, with a very wild and bold district on the right hand, and with a region of gently swelling downs on the left. Very little wood is encountered after the bush has been fairly passed; but the summits of distant hills are frequently seen to be crowned with trees and foliage-filled ravines, and kloofs or hollows constantly diversify the sides of these grassy uplands. From the top of the second terrace, which has an elevation of a little more than two thousand feet above the sea, Maritzburg is seen lying five or six miles away in the midst of a broad flat valley, backed by a green amphitheatre of overhanging heights, which are sentinelled by the black-topped peak of the Zwartkop Mountain on the left, and flanked by the lengthened wall of the Table Mountain to the right. The city itself appears as a long line of white and red dots, set in a thick environment of foliage; the buildings are widely and thinly scattered, and separated from each other by rather extensive stretches of grass, planted with willows and other diminutive-looking trees. The road is seen winding along down the gentle slope which leads into the valley. The first distant view of Maritzburg, standing as it does in a broad open basin, rimmed by green hills, is attractive and bright enough. It is a curious illustration of the characteristics and conditions of wagon-transport, that the numerous vehicles which are continually on the wheel between the port and the capital, carry half a ton more freight up the country, than they will venture to undertake down. It is easier for the sturdy oxen to drag their cumbrous burden bodily up-hill, than it is to let the heavy wagon safely down-hill, unstayed as it is by any other contrivance than a drag upon the wheels. The winter is the season when traffic is most actively carried on within the colony. During the rainy season of the summer, it is very frequently interrupted by the slippery state of the roads. The oxen cannot treck with a heavy wagon after rain, until the surface-soil has acquired a tolerable state of consistency. There is postal communication between D'Urban and Maritzburg three times in the week; the letter-bags being carried on the backs of natives. The carrier performs his fifty-four miles on foot, with unfailing punctuality, in eighteen hours. The South African is of languid and dreamy temperament, and it is generally supposed that very little labour can be extracted from his sinews. There are few AngloSaxons, however, who could carry the heavy letterbags between D'Urban and Maritzburg as these Zulus do. The newly arrived stranger, as he notes the way in which the various locomotive services required by civilisation are now performed amongst the green slopes of this young land, cannot refrain from wondering how long it will be before the 'Grand Junction Port Natal and Orange River Railway' shall have put the jolting ox-wagon out of joint, and relieved the native postmen of their toil; and how long before the lieutenant-governor places upon his estimates a yearly subsidy for the 'Barotse Valley and Umgeni Line of Electric Telegraph;' in order that government may have the earliest account of the state of the markets at Makololo and on the banks of the Leeba. It would be interesting, too, to know when the Great Eastern will be snorting its smoke and flame in the bay. It is perhaps worthy of note that monster vessels of this class may actually do more to make the colony of Natal accessible than any other thing which has been attempted or conceived, notwithstanding the fact that the difficulty has hitherto been the employment of ships of more than a couple of hundred tons' burden. To the Great Eastern, the mere turning of one or two hundred miles out of the high road to Australia or India would be an affair of very little moment, and the adverse current of the L'Agulhas stream would be as nothing to her stupendous mechanical power. In the outer bay of D'Urban the question of weather would not give to her captain's face a single cloud of uneasiness. In the teeth of the most formidable south-easter, the monster would turn her bows to the gale, and, under gentle steam, would lie at her ease with perfect nonchalance, whilst, in the shelter of the mighty bulwark of her side, her steam long-boat is dropped into the sea, ready packed for Natal. The light and swift steamer would then shoot into the inner bay, regardless of the state of the bar-a matter of life-and-death import to heavier craft-and after depositing its freight in smooth water, would, in a couple of hours at most, be again dangling from the davits by the side of the Great Eastern, as she sped swiftly on her way to the east or the south. AFTER DINNER. I SHOULD go out to dinner oftener (if I were asked), and, at all events, enjoy it far more, were it not for that dread Thereafter-the conversation which is so certain to take place when the ladies have withdrawn; were it not for that something after' dinner, which, whether it turn upon Horses, Dogs, Family, or the Vintages, never fails to sickly o'er with the pale cast of wretchedness that hue of resolution which good port has a tendency to impart to me. The labours of the day being over, their minds being at ease, and their bodies refreshed, one would imagine that men at such a time would grow communicative and unreserved; would express their real opinion upon various interesting subjects; allow what wit and humour they might have to flow unrepressed; and, in short, would make themselves as agreeable and entertaining as possible. And yet most diners-out are aware that the very contrary of this is generally the case. I do not speak, of course, of assemblies of savans who, however, have their own after-dinner weaknesses-or of persons who have met together with any specific object, or upon any particular occasion; or of mere intellectual society, people to whom dinner is the secondary consideration, and conversation the first-although under both these circumstances I have known this foolish sort of talk to prevail too-but of ordinary after-dinner parties in the upper classes, both in town and country. Thereat, I affirm, a conversation-wheel-such as is in operation at Cremorne Gardens for the convenience of those who practise shooting with a musket and an iron nail does revolve perpetually with Horses, Dogs, Family, and the Vintages fixed upon it, and nothing else. If we do lose sight for a little while of the horses and dogs, up come family and the vintages to fill their place, and vice versa; and when we have run through the whole very limited gamut, we are only saved by the intervention of the coffee, from the recurrence of the Horses, Dogs, Family, and the Vintages again. The animals, perhaps, belong more particularly to the country, and the wines to the town-the more obnoxious topic of Family being, alas! common to all places; but they infest conversation, more or less, in either locality, and always to the exclusion of anything really worth hearing. If there happen to be a picture of a horse in the dining-room, it is probable that the equine subject will have the pas of the rest. Some hypocrite will be sure to pretend to discover in family, but that they had withstood all temptations. Or he narrates how his great-uncle, 'who knew a good glass of wine when he saw it, sir' (always ‘sir' upon these occasions, in order, I think, to terrify anybody who may be inclined to question these interesting statements)-how his great-uncle had picked it up at the Plantagenet sale in 1820, when the execution was in the great house at Deerpark, as everybody must recollect, and the duke's wine fetched such extraordinary prices; or he (the host) himself had taken it in a bad debt of the late Alderman Sleekie ('Capital judge of madeira was Sleekie, sir '); and there was the alderman's own seal, if we would like to see it, on every individual bottle now left in the bin. Many of the company are naturally distrustful of these panegyrics, and have more than half a mind to think that this extraordinary wine must have come from the public-house at the corner; but we all hold our glasses between one eye and the candles, and say 'Ha' and 'Indeed' with relish, smack our lips with a peculiar turkey-gobbling' noise, and express a wish (without the least foundation in the world) to know where a dozen or two could, by favour, be purchased for ourselves. Some poor relation of the host, or guest whom liquor and courtesy have together overcome, is then very particular to state that such a desire can by no means be gratified; There is no such wine as that (in his glass) to be got now-a-days, sir; no, nor at any other table but the present.' that work of art a resemblance to the host's Old But harassing as these three subjects of postprandial conversation are, they are not, after all, so pretentious, so humiliating, so barren of every kind of interest, as that of the Vintages. I have often thought that if one of the weaker sex should happen to secrete herself-as her sister did in that assembly of the freemasons-in a cupboard or beneath the table, to listen to the talk when it got into men's hands only, that we should never (if it turned upon the Vintages) hold our supremacy over females any more. She would tell them what we were really made of, and we should very properly be despised for ever afterwards. This is how the tedious topic gets discussed. The host generally begins it with some reference to a bottle then going the round of the table; he affirms that his grandfather obtained it, at great expense and risk, at the beginning of the Peninsular War; and proceeds to detail, how that relative, and his own father, and himself, have been offered vast sums for it by connoisseurs of noble This complimentary statement is the signal for a general conversation upon the Vintages,' with which nine-tenths of the company are in reality about as conversant as a Norwegian may be with Bradshaw's Railway Guide. A certain dinner-party was lately given in the metropolis, whereto a friend of the present writer's was invited, who shares with him his hatred of 'the Vintages;' it was a man's party at the house of a bachelor, and the oppressive topic of wines was started early, and afforded a dreary run of one hour and forty minutes, without one check. My friend never uttered a syllable, but smiled at the company contemptuously, while he partook of the subject of discussion with a savage determination. The conclusion at last arrived at was the usual one, that there was no 34 wine to be got now in this country, sir,' and then they all adjourned to the drawing-room. On their way thither, the host, who had perceived my friend's annoyance, took him aside, and apologised for the dulness of the recent 'Nay,' replied he, 'I did not mind that; it was the falsehood-the absence of truth in what they said which annoyed me. I know the vintage subject perfectly well, having made it my study for years, and I hate to hear the misrepresentations which are afloat about it. For instance, so far from 34 wine being scarce at this moment, there is more of it just now than the merchants (I mention Smith of Crutched Friars, and Jones of the Quadrant, for instance) can well dispose of: there is a glut of 34, sir, at this moment in the market, if your friends only knew where to look for it.' The indignant superiority of the speaker's manner overcame his auditor completely; he went about the drawing-room whispering to his astonished guests this precious news; it was a secret, he said (for he was not going to let my friend have all the credit of it), a dead secret, but he had it from the best authority, he did assure them. Jones of the Quadrant, Smith of Crutched Friars, were, in consequence, as much surprised as delighted to receive, upon the following day, half-a-dozen separate orders for that 34, of which it was understood by the purchasers they had such a plentiful stock in hand. The worthy merchants did not contradict that statement, we may be sure; and I may state to their honour, if not to that of my friend, that they sent him a few bottles of the genuine precious liquid for having so kindly recommended their cellar to the notice of his acquaintances. But as there is most certainly an offensive knowingness in some people concerning wine, so there is also, in others, a too great simplicity. Let A. and X. -to avoid any suspicion of personality-represent each one of those different classes. They were old friends, and they dined with each other once a year. The only thing they quarrelled about-and they did it at each of these annual meetings-was the 'vintages,' and the relative value of wines. A. could tell you off upon his fingers what years were good for the grapes from 1800 to the present date; X., who despised such knowledge, and thought all wine pretty much alike, asserted that A. invented his statements; nevertheless, X. always gave his friend the very best bottle of port that money could buy. On the last occasion but one that A. dined with him, the guest finished off one quart, and had just begun another, when the vintage' contention became so violent between them, that he left in a huff. On that day year, when the quarrel had of course been long cemented, and the legs of A. were once more under the mahogany of X., the former made a wry face at his first glass of port. 'Why, X.,' cried he, 'what poison is this you are giving me? Though you know no more of port than a Mussulman, you have always set before me hitherto, I must say, most excellent wine; but this-good gracious!-it's perfectly horrible.' 'Did you not like the wine I gave you last year?' inquired X., with a smile of sarcasm. Yes,' said A.; that was as sound as a bell; and, I remember, that I began the second bottle.' 'Well, this is the same wine,' observed X., gravely. 'I don't believe a word of it,' exclaimed A., exceedingly nettled; this couldn't have cost you a pound a dozen.' 'Stop a bit,' replied the other, quietly, and with the air of a man who was about to settle an important question at once and for ever, and I will prove to you what a humbug you are; and what rubbish are all your "twenties" and "thirty-fours," and the rest of it. That wine is the very same wine that you professed to like so much last year, for it's the very same decanter that you left unfinished at my table. And now, will you ever venture to open your mouth about "the vintages" again?' Nor could X. be got to acknowledge that standing for 365 days in a cellaret would make the slightest difference. ODOURS. GEOLOGICAL GEOLOGICAL odours, or odours emitted naturally from rocks or minerals, are interesting on this accountthat they are not common. We are speaking, of course, of characteristic odours. Indeed, hardly a rock or stone exists but which, having certain gases condensed in its pores, emits them with their peculiar olfactive properties when breathed upon or when wet. Thus many persons have doubtless, like ourselves, had frequent occasion to remark the peculiar odour which arises suddenly from the earth in the country roads, as well as in the streets of our cities, the moment a heavy summer shower of rain begins to fall. In organic nature, odoriferous substances are very abundant, and many of them have actually been produced artificially by modern chemists. This is true, for instance, of the sweet essence of bitter almonds, the flavour of the apple (valerianate of amyle), of the pear (acetate of amyle), of the pine-apple (butyrate of amyle), and of the strong-smelling oil of garlic (sulphide of allyle). But in the mineral kingdom, only a very few natural species may be distinguished from others by the aid of the olfactory nerve. Certain natural bituminous substances-and here we fall again into the organic world-such as naphtha, petroleum, &c., may be recognised by their peculiar smell; and among the strictly inorganic mineral species diffused through nature, sulphurous acid, hydrosulphuric acid, chlorine, and hydrochloric acid are the most powerfully odorous substances known. When mineral substances are acted upon chemically, the presence of many bodies may be ascertained with great certainty by the odours they then give rise to; for instance, arseniferous minerals, and compounds of selenium, when heated on charcoal before the blow-pipe, give out an unmistakable smell of garlic and rotten cabbage; and again, certain sulphides, when acted upon by a strong acid, evolve sulphuretted hydrogen. We have heard many persons speak of the smell of sulphur. Pure sulphur has little or no smell at all; but when burnt in the air, it develops sulphurous acid, the pungent odour of which brings tears into the eyes. Certain black and dark-coloured limestones, particularly those of the coal and anthraciferous strata, develop, when broken or scratched, a peculiar odour, which has often been attributed to sulphuretted hydrogen, or arseniuretted hydrogen; but, if I mistake not, Dr Percy has satisfactorily proved, that in many black limestones no sulphuretted hydrogen is contained; and it appears more probable that this odour is of organic nature, and due to bituminous substances contained in the limestones we speak of. Every school-boy is aware that when two pieces of quartz are rubbed smartly together in the dark, they produce a sort of electric light or phosphorescence, which is, to a certain extent, a reproduction of the grand phenomenon of sheet-lightning. A strong odour is emitted at the same time; and this-although I have made no actual experiment to prove it-I believe to be due to ozone, a peculiar condition or state of oxygen gas, which, though quite devoid of smell in its natural state, becomes, under the influence of the electric spark, and in various other circumstances, remarkably odoriferous, whilst, at the same time, its chemical properties are completely changed. The electricity produced by rubbing together the two pieces of quartz, acts, it would seem, upon the oxygen of the air which surrounds them, and produces an odour of ozone. The strong-smelling substances, sulphurous acid, hydrochloric acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and perhaps chlorine, are present in active volcanoes and Solfatara. Hydrochloric acid is very common, for instance, at Vesuvius, where it is condensed by the aqueous vapour into an acid liquid; it is also found in certain mineral waters, and now and then it is evolved from beds or strata of rock-salt. Chlorine is frequently discovered in the pores of certain ancient volcanic products, such as those of Puy-Sarcouy, in Auvergne. Sulphurous acid is extremely common in volcanic eruptions of all descriptions, and in the gaseous emanations of Solfatara, &c.; whilst sulphuretted hydrogen (hydrosulphuric acid) is most frequently perceived in dormant volcanoes and certain mineral waters. Pure carbonic acid-which is acknowledged to be the most important of all gaseous emanations, both on account of the abundance with which it is evolved, and the number of localities in which it presents itself is completely devoid of smell. The same may be said of nitrogen gas and proto-carbide of hydrogen, whilst deuto-carbide of hydrogen has a slight but very peculiar odour. regarded by the natives of these parts as a sovereign remedy for all kinds of skin-disease. In mud-volcanoes and salzes, we have a production Albert Berg has described the famous Asiatic of sulphurous acid, carbides of hydrogen, naphtha, or Chimæra pretty nearly as follows: It is situated near other bituminous and odoriferous substances, besides the town of Deliktasch, in Lycia, on the west coast of certain gases which are devoid of smell. A fact, the Gulf of Adalia. Near the ruins of an ancient which is perhaps little known is this, namely, that temple of Vulcan rise the remains of a Christian naphtha is also present in ordinary volcanic eruptions; church in the later Byzantine style. In a forecourt and this was actually perceived by the ancient writer situated to the east, the flame breaks out of a fireStrabo, who relates that the elevated dome-like hill place-like opening about two feet broad, and one foot of Methana opened in fiery eruptions, at the close of deep, in the serpentine rock. It rises to a height of which an agreeable odour was diffused in the night-three or four feet, and diffuses a pleasant odour,' which time. It is very remarkable that the latter was is perceptible to a distance of forty paces. At a likewise observed during the volcanic eruptions of distance of three paces from the flame, the heat it Santorin in the autumn of 1650, when, according gives out is scarcely endurable; a piece of dry wood to Ludwig Ross, an indescribable pleasant odour' fol- ignites when it is held in the opening and brought lowed the stinking smell of sulphurous vapours. near the flame without touching it. And this magniThe same pleasant odour has been also noticed by ficent phenomenon has been going on for several Kotzebue during an eruption of the newly formed thousand years! volcano Umnack, in the year 1804; and during the great eruption of Vesuvius on the 12th of August 1805, Humboldt and Gay-Lussac perceived a bituminous odour prevailing at times in the ignited crater. There is not much doubt left now that it is naphtha that burns in several of those remarkable productions of nature, the perpetual burning-springs, more especially in the famous Asiatic Chimæra, in Lycia, on the coast of Asia Minor. In many springs of this kind, it has been supposed that it is carburetted hydrogen gas (carbide of hydrogen) that burns. We see issue from the ground,' says Humboldt, speaking of gaseous emanations in general, steam and gaseous carbonic acid-almost free from the admixture of nitrogencarburetted hydrogen gas, which has been used in the Chinese province of Sse-tschaun for several thousand years, and recently in the village of Fredonia, in the state of New York (U. S.), in cooking and for illumination.' But it is difficult to account for so continual a supply of gas always emanating from nearly the same spot: indeed, this objection might be raised respecting naphtha; but it loses, perhaps, a little of its force in the latter case. At the time Captain Beaufort visited the famous Chimæra (his observations were published in 1820), it was thought to be a spring of burning carburetted hydrogen gas. Since that time, the same spot has been visited by many travellers, curious to see a perpetual fire that has been burning now for several thousand years, and which has been spoken of by Pliny, Seneca, Ctesias, Strabo, among the ancients, and by a host of modern writers. Lieutenant Spratt and Professor Edward Forbes found this spring as brilliant as ever, just as Beaufort had left it, perhaps even somewhat increased. They speak of soot being deposited by its flames, and this seems to prove that it is naphtha that burns, and not carburetted hydrogen, for the latter would deposit no soot. This soot is produced in considerable quantity, and the Turks use it as a remedy for sore eyelids, and value it as a dye for the eyebrows. But what gives still more probability to the assertion that it is naphtha that burns in this perpetual fiery spring, is the agreeable odour remarked near it by a more recent traveller, Albert Berg, a distinguished German artist. The Chimæra rises from serpentine rocks associated with limestone, somewhat similar to the formation observed by Sir Roderick Murchison and Pareto in the districts of Tuscany, where the boracic acid fumarolle exists; and, curious to relate, it appears probable from certain ancient traditions, that some of these boracic acid springs were formerly seen to be luminous (ignited) during the night. At the bottom of a crater-like cavity, from which the combustible vapours issue in the Chimæra, is a shallow pool of sulphurous and turbid water, which is | Of all geological odours, that which I am about to speak of is, at least in one respect, the most curious. Its discovery was made in the following manner : During the five or six years I was occupied in scientific pursuits at the university of Brussels, I employed various means to make the acquaintance of, and to be on good terms with, the workmen employed in clearing away the sandy strata which surrounds the town; and especially with those who were then occupied in levelling a great part of the Faubourg de Schaerbeek. Brussels, like Rome, is built upon seven hills, so that the works of which I speak often attained a considerable depth in the strata of the earth, affording many an opportunity of noting the exact disposition of these strata and the fossils they contain. By sundry promises-which, I beg to add, were most faithfully fulfilled-of faro* and cigars, I prevailed upon several workmen to bring to me everything 'curious-looking' that they happened to meet with in their work of excavation, or to send for me immediately if the treasures they dug up were too large or too heavy to be transported to my abode. In this manner I got hold of a good deal of rubbish, such as curiously shaped stones, clotted sand, differently coloured flints, &c., &c.; but I soon found myself also in possession of some very rare and curious specimens, which even the professors of the university looked upon with wonder, and which have more than once excited the curiosity and admiration of the illustrious and much-regretted Dumont, who sometimes honoured me with a visit. Brussels, I should also inform my readers, stands upon the lower or more ancient of the Tertiary strata. D'Omalius d'Hallog, another celebrated Belgian geologist, classes its strata in the middle eocene formation. The town and its environs are built upon an immense bed of sand, often calcareous, and presenting frequently blocks of calcareous sandstone, which gradually blend into a sort of shining quartzite, known as grès luisant by the Belgian and French geologists, and blocks or strata of white or yellowish limestone. These are all employed, to a certain extent, for building and paving; but the stones they furnish are not large enough to be very valuable. The deposit (formation or strata, call it what you will) of which we have just spoken, is tolerably rich in fossils, most of which are also found in the lower strata of the Paris Tertiaries, which are considered to be of the same geological age. Among other fossils brought to me from the middle eocene sand of Schaerbeek, were some magnificent specimens of a sort of cocoa-nut or palm-nut. Once upon a time, these cocoa-nuts' (Nipadites) grew and flourished at Brussels: nowa-days, it is as much as we can do to keep the hardy date-palm alive in this climate. *Belgian beer. |