: removed the earth in four or five places, he found a large elephant's tusk from thence we went to the Colle degli Stecconi, and with the same facility he dug up a large grinder, with some of the bones of the cranium, and two tusks-one of which was nearly five feet long, and eight inches in its greatest diameter. In Valdarno Supe riore, they also find bones of the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, stag's horns, jaw-bones and teeth of the mastodonton, and other herbivorous animals, which seem to belong to the horse and the ox. The district where these remains are found in greatest abundance, is that on the right bank of the Arno, between Figline, Castelfranco, and San Giovanni, and from Renaccio to Montanino; from whence were obtained the chief part of those that are in the Royal Museum of Florence, in that of professor Targioni, and those belonging to the Accademia Valdarnese di Figline, who are in possession of a very fine series, collected chiefly by the Padre Molinari, a monk of Vallombrosa.' p. 179. These remains are not confined to Valdarno nor to Tuscany, but are found in different places on both sides of the Apennines, from Lombardy to Calabria. M. Brocchi gives a list of the most remarkable places where they have been found, distinguishing the different species of animals. He enumerates forty-six specimens of the bones of elephants, found in different situations -in Piedmont-near Verona-in the territories of Pavia, Tortona, Placentia and Bologna-in Puglia, Basilicata, and Calabria-in the neighbourhood of Pozzuoli near Naples-twelve different places near Rome-near Viterbo, Todi, Perugia and Cortona-in Valdarno Superiore and Inferiore, near Leghornand also at Palermo in Sicily, which last country appears to abound in fossil bones. On one occasion, there was found in the neighbourhood of Rome, the entire skeleton of an elephant; but it was unfortunately destroyed by the workmen. He describes fifteen specimens of the Mastodonton found in different parts of Piedmont and Lombardy, and on both sides of the Apennines, but not farther south than Perugia. At Castell' Arquato, there was found the greater part of the skeleton of a rhinoceros; and in Valdarno Superiore, and the territory of Perugia, different bones of the same animal. In Valdarno Superiore, in Piedmont, and in the neighbourhood of Verona, remains of the Hippopotamus have been dug up; and many specimens of the head and horns of the Urus have been found in the territories of Verona, Pavia, Siena, in the Marca di Ancona, and near Rome. A head of the Irish Elk was found in Oltrepò Pavese, another in the vicinity of Voghera, and a third near Lodi Vecchio on the banks of the Lambro. The bones of all these animals are found, in general, a few feet below the surface; and the soil in which they are buried is commonly a yellow sand, generally calcareous, but sometimes almost whol ly siliceous. Of this last description is the soil in many parts of Valdarno Superiore, which does not effervesce with acids, and is composed of grains of quartz and scales of mica, mixed with a reddish yellow oxide of iron. When it is not agglutinated, it is called Sansino by the inhabitants; and when, as is often the case, it is consolidated, they call it Tufo. The elephant's tusk found by Canali near Perugia, was in a field covered with rounded pebbles; and that mentioned by Baccio as having been dug up near Rome in his time (1580), appears to have been discovered in the midst of a coarse gravel. These fossil remains of land animals are not confined to the sand and gravel alone, but are also sometimes found in the blue marl when it occupies the surface, and is not covered by other deposits. I have seen instances of this in Valdarno itself, on the Colle degli Stecconi, where a part of the head of an elephant was dug out of it in my presence. The tusk of Belvedere near Jesi was in a soil of the same sort, as well as the jawbone of the Rhinoceros found by Canali in the territory of Perugia. One of the vertebræ of the skeleton of the rhinoceros found at Castell' Arquato was in the marl, while all the other bones were in the siliceo-calcareous sand lying over it.' p. 195. It is a very curious circumstance, and one of considerable importance in the physical history of the country round Rome, that bones of the elephant have been found there, imbedded at the depth of twenty feet, in the volcanic tufo. Fortis, in his Memoires sur L'Hist. Nat., has said, that the tusk of an elephant was hewn out of a bed of stone of ancient formation, containing exotic marine remains, found near Leghorn. From this description one might suppose, that it was a solid limestone similar to that of the Apennines; but M. Brocchi informs us, that this stone is a calcareous tufo of a cellulartexture, having grains of sand of different sizes imbedded in it; and the shells it contains are so broken, that it is impossible to say to what species they belong. There is a considerable bed of it, which is partly washed by the waves of the sea; and it is gradually increasing in extent, by the agglutination of the grains of sand by a calcareous cement. This is evidently a rock which has been formed in the same manner as that on the shore of Guadaloupe, in which the human skeleton was found; but from M. Brocchi's account of the rock near Leghorn, that of Guadaloupe is of a much more consolidated texture. We have already mentioned, that some of the whale's bones found in the territory of Placentia, and in Valdarno, were encrusted with oyster-shells; but it is still more remarkable, that some of the elephant's bones dug up in Valdarno, and in the territory of Placentia, have also been found covered with the same shells, and adhering to them so firmly, that they could not be detached without breaking the bone. All the more prominent parts of these bones, such as must have been broken had they been brought to their present situations from a distance, are in the highest state of preservation; nor have any bones been found having the slightest appearance of having been worn by attrition. Among all the fossil bones that have been found in different parts of Italy, there are very few which can, with any degree of certainty, be referred to carnivorous land animals. In the museum of Florence, there is a portion of a jawbone with three teeth, which appears to have belonged to an animal of this class ; and there are some bones and teeth, in the collections of Tar gioni and Tartini, which Cuvier considered as belonging to the Bear. All these were found in Valdarno. We have also in this work a further confirmation of the extraordinary fact, perhaps the most important that has yet been established by the re searches of the geologist, that in all the collections of fossil bones that have been discovered in various parts of the world, even amongst the gravel scattered on the surface during the last of the innumerable changes which the crust of the earth has under gone, not a trace of the existence of man has been discovered. The second volume contains the Descriptive Catalogue of the fossil shells of the Sub-Apennines, arranged according to the sys tem of Linnaeus, which M. Brocchi has adopted in preference to those of Bruguiere, Lamark, and Bosc; who, with a pedantic affectation of precision, have created many new genera where no essential differences exist, and, by introducing a cumbrous load of new terms, have rendered the subject of Conchology, in itself sufficiently tiresome, still more tedious and uninviting. In the Catalogue, the three classes of Univalves, Bivalves, and Multivalves, are separately treated of; and, under each genus are described the different species found in a fossil state in the Sub-Apennines. All the Linnæan genera of Univalves have been found, excepting the Argonauta and Haliotis; and all the Bivalves, without any exception. Of the Multivalves, the Chiton has not been met with. The descriptions of the shells are illustrated by plates, which we cannot praise too highly; for they are more beautifully executed than any thing of the kind we have ever seen before. ART. VIII. 1. Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, from the carlier Teutonic and Scandinavian Romances, being an Abstract of the Book of Heroes and Nibelungen Lay; with Transla tions of Metrical Tales from the old German, Danish, Swedish, and Icelandic Languages, with Notes and Dissertations. (By Mr WEBER and Mr JAMIESON.) 4to. pp. 820. Edinburgh, 181 2. Altdeutsche Wälder, durch der Brüder GRIMM. Frankfort, 1815. Cassel, 1813. 3. Lieder der Alten Edda aus der handschrift herausgegeben und erklärt durch dir Brüder GRIMM. Berlin, 1815. 4. Nordische Helden Romane Uebersetzt durch F. H. von der HAGEN. Berlin, 1814. 5. Altnordische Sagen und Lieder, &c.—herausgegeben durch F. H. VON DER HAGEN. Berlin, 1812. 6. Der beiden altesten Deutschen gedichte aus dem achten Jahrhundert, Das Lied von Hildebrand und Hadnbrand und das Weissenbrunner gebet zum erstenmal in ihrem metrum dargestellt und herausgegeben durch der Brüder GRIMM. Cassel, 1812. 7: Literarischer grundriss zur geschichte der Deutschen poesie durch F. H. VON DER HAGEN und J. G. BüscHING. Berlin, 1812. 8. Der Heldenbuch, herausgegeben durch F. H. VON DER HAGEN. Berlin, 1812. 9. Ueber der Altdeutschen Meister gesang von JACOB GRIMM. Göttingen, 1811. 10. Der Lied der Nibelungen in der Ursprache, mit der Lesarten der verschiedenen hand-schriften herausgegeben durch F. H. VON DER HAGEN. Berlin, 1810. 11. Sammlung Deutschen Volks lieder, herausgegeben durch BüsCHING und VON DER HAGEN, Berlin, 1807. THE study of the ancient poetry of the North, has now become a favourite pursuit in Germany. Whilst the Germans were groaning under their foreign taskmasters, their laws, their customs, and their very language were threatened with extinction. Their common sufferings, as well as their late unexampled successes, have roused the dormant spirit of German påtriotism. They have become conscious of the innate worth and might of their nation, and have begun to prize whatever is peculiar to it with enthusiastic fondness. This effervescent nationality is perhaps at present a little too impetuous; but it has had the good effect of restoring their long forgotten bards, as well as the romantic legends of the olden day, to their former popularity: And a kind of poetical accomplishment has thus been given to the old prophecy, that Ariovistus and Wittekind, and the invulnerable Siegfried would issue once more from the ruins of Geroldseck, at the time when Germany was in its utmost need, and again bring triumph and glory to their countrymen. All nations have had their mythological age, in which the de stroyers of mankind have generally found no difficulty in soaring up to the thrones of the celestial regions. The last Odin, in this way, became the rightful monarch of Valhalla; and the statue of the King of the Cherusci, was exalted on the pillar of the god of battles. We doubt not but that the bards of Arminius found the defeat of Varus and his legions announced with all due clearness and precision in the dread oracles of the Oak: And, making allowance for change of circumstances, we may safely boast, that the hierophantic race is not wholly extinct, even in the present day. Every body knows how skilfully Mr Granville Penn contrived to discover, within a very few months after the end of the last Russian campaign, that all Bonaparte's bulletins and bivouacks-Moscow, Smolensko and Kutosoff, and Tchitchagoff, were all lying snugly enough wrapped up in the 38th and 39th chapters of Ezekiel; and if affairs had not fortunately taken another turn, there was a time when their Majesties of Austria, Wirtemberg, Prussia, &c. &c. and certain other of their cashiered compeers, would have had a fair chance of ranking amongst the seven heads and the ten horns, at least in the opinion of more than one acute and learned expounder of the book of Revelation. There has been as rapid a transition from military fame to romantic fabling in less obscure periods. By ascribing to the successful warrior somewhat of supernatural prowess, the vanquished have been willing to extenuate their shame, and the victors to enhance their glory. When Alexander buried the armour fitted for limbs of more than mortal mould, he had a latent foreboding of the light in which he was to be considered by future generations in Persia and India, who would picture him now mounted on his griffin, and darting through the clouds, and now sunk beneath the billows in his house of glass, and compelling the inhabitants of every element to own him as their so-vereign. The pride of the Franks bestowed more crowns upon Charlemagne, than that doughty and orthodox Emperor ever claimed. And the prowess of Roland must be gathered from the song of the minstrel, and not from the dry historical brevity of Eginhart, where we shall seek in vain for the terrific imagery of the battle of Roncesvalles, in the ambush of the Gascons, and the death of the Prefect Rotlandus. The investigations of the historians of chivalrous fiction, have been hitherto confined to the Romances of the French and their numerous imitators; and the subject, although by no means exhausted, has yet become tolerably familiar. The errant knights whom we have usually encountered, either aspire to a seat at the Round Table, or owe allegiance to the lilied banner; and with these most of us are now very tolerably acquainted. Amadis of Gaul, and Paimerin |