FRANCE.

Academy of Sciences. At a recent sitting of the Academy of Sciences, in Paris, M. Dupin read a report from a committee which had been appointed to examine the utility of two new unities of measure, proposed by M. de Prony. To the first, which was for the purpose of estimating the flowing of water, and to which the inventor had given the name of module, the committee could see no objection, and they unanimously proposed to the Academy to require from government that it should henceforward be the sole measure for estimating the flowing of water. It is equivalent to a current of water capable of filling ten cubic metres in a day. In the way of establishing a unity of measure for motive powers, the committee felt that there was greater difficulty. They could not, however, deny the urgent necessity of remedying the inconveniences resulting from measures founded on the strength of an animal; of a horse, for instance-a strength so dependent on the breed, on the shape, on the size, and on the time of being worked, as to be liable to a variation of from one to three. Upon the whole, the committee recommended the adoption of a unity of measure for estimating the force of machines, under the name of dyname; and which should express the quantity of force capable of raising, in one day, a thousand cubic metres of water (of a certain temperature) a metre in height. The report was acknowledged to be of great importance, and was postponed for consideration.

Fossil Bones found in France. In several places of the chalk mountains of Quercy, in the department of the Lot, are to be found the remains of a sort of rectilinear and circular intrenchments, form ed of rough blocks. The most remarkable of them are on the summit of two mountains, in the parish of Breingues, district of Figeac, the one of which lies on the right, and the other on the left bank of the Sélé. Among the rocks on the right bank, are several holes or caverns, with traces of mason-work before them, as is the case with most of the recesses in the rocks along the banks of the Lot, Sélé, &c. Traditions of treasures concealed in these caverns, have occasioned search to be made in them every way. In 1816, almost the whole inhabitants of Breingues paid a visit to those above-mentioned. At the one, the mouth of which the rocks almost entirely concealed, the entrance was found to be blocked up with earth. The people set to

work to remove this, and at three feet depth came upon the skeleton of a man, and near it a sort of fork, with two prongs, of iron. This discovery made them still more intent upon the search, and by the help of a windlass they removed the earth, and continued working to a perpendicular depth of eighteen metres. At this depth the perpendicular direction of the cavern altered to three horizontal branches, which were filled up in the same way with earth and rubbish. The workmen followed one of these, but were soon stopped by three large stones, placed one above another, evidently by the hands of man. On removing them, it was observed that, on one side, they were all of a reddish earthy colour, like other stones raised from the surface of the soil, but, on the reverse sides, there were traces of cryptogamia, moss, byssus, &c. which plainly showed that they must have lain long in the air before they were brought underground. The men were now quite convinced that behind these were concealed the caves containing the treasures; but instead of them they found an extraordinary heap of bones, a part of which was mixed with earth and rubbish of stones, but others were very carefully placed away in the narrow crevices of the rocks. Several heads of an unknown kind of deer, and many others, not mixed with earth, but carefully arranged, were discovered in a hole covered with a flat stone. Now and then the masses of stones and heaps of common earth, were interrupted by small piles of clayey sand or alluvial soil, as if they had been deposited by the Sélé. It was easy to see that the river never could have deposited them here, and that it must have been the work of man, for they were pressed together, regularly disposed, and, above all, surrounded by small very white chalk-stones, which, even if the water had deposited the piles so regularly, must necessarily have been soiled; besides, the elevation of the cavern, more than three hundred metres above the bed of the river, banished all supposition that they could have been occasioned by the Sélé. In the hope of proving more fortunate in the other branches of the cavern, operations in the one where the experiment had been first made were abandoned; but in the others nothing was found except bones, collected in the same manner. great a quantity was dug up, that, if gathered into a heap, they would have occupied a space of more than twenty cubic metres. The greater part of them appeared as fresh as if the flesh had only

So

lossal winged Victory in bronze, six large busts (one of Faustina, the consort of Marcus Aurelius), a richly-gilt statue, four feet and a half in height, of a captive sovereign, a highly-ornamented breastplate of a horse, and other antiquities, been extracted from the ruins. They are in perfect preservation, and seem to have been walled for concealment. The workmanship is much praised; but the period was not, we are inclined to think, of the purest style, as the gilding of the figures, and onyx eyes in the Victory and king, testify.

St. Augustine. A report states, that in one of the convents on Mount Lebanon, a MS. of the Universal History of Orosius of Tarragonia, with Notes in the handwriting of St. Augustine, has been found,

and sent to Rome.

A letter from Mr. Champollion, jun., says that the Chevalier Gell (Sir William Gell we presume) having communicated to him some drawings made in Egypt by Messrs. Wilkinson and Cooper, he had discovered, by the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the great Zodiac of Esné, that that monument was dedicated under the reign of the Emperor Commodus, and that the dedicatory inscriptions of the temples of Dakke, Ombos, and Phile, in hieroglyphics, perfectly correspond to the Greek inscriptions on the same temples, published by M. Letronne. The hieroglyphic inscriptions of the great temple of Ipsamboul prove also that that temple was dedicated by the great Sesostris, on the 13th tyb. of the 35th year of his reign; other inscriptions have the date of the 38th year of the same prince. Thus, thanks to the alphabet of hieroglyphics, the true chronology of the monuments of Egypt and Nubia is gradually established, and the Zodiacs remain monuments of

the Roman era.

GERMANY.

Leipsic Fair. Three hundred and ninety-one booksellers met at the last Easter fair at Leipsic; and two thousand three hundred and seventy-four new works, written in German or in the ancient languages, sufficiently proved the prodigious activity with which the sciences are cultivated. To these must be added atlases, romances, dramatic pieces, musical compositions, &c., making the whole number amount to two thousand seven hundred and forty-nine. Among the most remarkable philological publications were the Analecta Literaria of the celebrated Professor Huschke; Hermann's Treatises; Observations by the same learned writer on the Greek Inscriptions published by Böckh; Süvern's Remarks on the Clouds of Aristophanes; Wullner's Treatise on

the Epic Cycle; that of Monk on Pomponius, &c. Of the archæological works, Gerhard's Collection of Antiquities; a Treatise by Kosegarten on the Egyptian Papyrus; and another by Franck, on the Philosophy and Literature of the Hindoos, were the most distinguished. The other sciences also received numerous valuable contributions.

Ancient Sepulture. A very ancient place of sepulture has lately been discovered on the mountain Schonberg, near Fribourg, in the Brisgau. From the brief notice of the matters found in the tombs, which is given in the German journals, we should ascribe these antiquities to the early Franks, if not to the more early Suevi, who inhabited the territory at the period of Roman conquests in Germany. A hundred and thirty-seven graves are stated to have been ransacked, (twice as many more, formed of large flat stones, remaining, as we understand, unopened,) and a multitude of skulls, ornaments, daggers, arrows, spears, swords, &c. found. The arrows and spears are of iron; the swords half iron and half steel; the daggers very fine steel, which resists the file. Coloured glass, some of it of the brightest sky-blue ever seen, set in silver; red and purple beads, and large pieces of amber, are among these curiosities, of which an account is preparing, with lithographic plates, by M. Schneiber of Fribourg.

DENMARK.

Schools of Mutual Instruction in Denmark. The Lancastrian schools are increasing every year in Denmark. The government has established, at Ekkernfærde, a school, expressly meant to provide instructors according to this method for the whole of Denmark. There is annually presented a report of all the schools of this kind in the kingdom, and of the success they have met with. A committee, connected with the head school, is especially charged with the duty of promoting this system of education, and of inducing its adoption in the whole of the provinces. Orders have been issued to the Executive Authorities to have an eye to the requisites for the system in the erection of school-houses; that is, to allow for each child a space of six square feet. The two hundred and thirty-six tablets used in mutual tuition are sold in the two languages, Danish and German, at the moderate price of six dollars, or twenty-four francs. The masters receive, besides these, a comment, which contains all the necessary instructions and explanations. In this work, which was drawn up by an association of learned men, various modifications of the system have

nearly the shape of a large cocoa-nut, and had four neat handles, placed near the brim opposite to each other; it was found in the bank on an island in the Ohio river, near Belprè. Arrow-heads of flint, and what, from their size, must have been used for spear-heads, of the same material, are found in ploughing the fields, scattered all over the bottomlands; stone hatchets, and stone pestles for pounding corn, are also common. On the beach near the mouth of the Muskingum, a curious ornament was discovered, which, from the neatness of the work manship, must have belonged to some distinguished personage among the ancient race of inhabitants; it is made of white marble, its form a circle, about three inches in diameter; the outer edge is about one inch in thickness, with a narrow rim; the sides are deeply concave, and in the centre is a hole about half an inch in diameter; it is beautifully finished, and so smooth as to give rise to a belief that it was once very richly polished. Ancient mounds, some circular, others oval, are frequent all over the county of Washington; some are constructed of stone, and some of earth; others are composed of both stones and earth.

ASIA.

Statistics of the Chinese Empire. -The empire is divided into 20 provinces. There are reckoned to be 185 capitals, and as many large towns of the second

order. The taxes and duties amount annually to a sum of about thirteen millions and a quarter sterling; 1,912,000 tons of corn and rice are also deducted for the subsistence of the troops, and supplying the public granaries. The civil service costs only one million and a half sterling: but the military service is six times as expensive, amounting to upwards of eight millions sterling. Among the articles of the Chinese budget, there are found eight millions for the keeping in repair of the Yellow River, two millions for the gardens of Yuen-Ming, and large sums for the entertainment of the ministers of state, of the first and second class, to the number of 3525. The revenue of the state in money and produce is valued at about thirty millions sterling. The duties of entry and exportation on English and American vessels received at Canton, add to this sum nearly another million. The revenue of England, which only reckons twenty-two millions of inhabitants, rose, in 1824, to a sum which was one-half more than that of the whole empire of China, which, according to the latest census, contains 146 millions of inhabitants. That part of the population which lives on the water amounts to two millions; the civil employments do not exceed 9611, and the military officers 7552. The army forms an enormous mass of 1,263,000 men, of which 822,000 belong to the infantry, 410,000 to the cavalry, and 31,000 to the marine.

Sir John Sinclair strongly recommends the use of oil as a manure, having seen excellent effects resulting from it on the Continent, and in some recent experiments in this country. One experiment, tried by the land-steward of the Earl of Glasgow, in Ayrshire, proved highly advantageous to a turnip crop: twenty bushels of sifted coal-ashes were mixed thoroughly with two gallons of whale oil; the mixture was put regularly into drills, in the same way that dung is generally used, and the manure was considerably cheaper than dung, although the oil was bought retail at two shillings and fourpence per Scotch gallon. Pure oil is not required; its being refined is of no consequence. Any kind of ashes may be used; and clay ashes, if not too much burat, would answer as well as those of coal. Sir John Sinclair adds, that it is particularly desirable to try the effects of drilling in the oil manure with the seed, as is successfully practised_at Holkham,

and other parts of Norfolk, with pulverized oil-cake.

Foreign Notices on Agriculture. In the newspaper of the Bavarian Agricultural Society, the nettle is said to have the following properties: eaten in salad, it relieves consumption; it fattens horned cattle, whether eaten green or dried; it not only fattens calves, but improves their flesh; it is an antidote to most maladies; sheep which eat it bring forth healthy, vigorous lambs; it promotes the laying of eggs in hens; it improves the fat of pigs; the seeds, mixed with oats, are excellent for horses; it grows all the year round, even in the coldest weather; and the fibres of the stem make an excellent hemp. The Bavarian oracle might have added, that few plants force better or more rapidly, and that the tender shoots so produced make a delicate and highflavoured pot-herb, resembling the points of the shoots of pompion. The nettle is much valued in Holland, where its young