[A new era in paving has been commenced by the substitution of wood for stone, but unfortunately, its vast superiority in some respects is nearly if not quite counterbalanced by its defects, so that it will probably be laid aside. An imperfect kind of wooden pavement has been much used in North America, and is known by the name of corduroy road; but the wooden pavement, properly so called, seems to have been first used in Russia, and within the last few years, on a small scale at Vienna, New York, &c. Its use in London was first suggested by Mr. Finlayson in 1825. It was originally formed of hexagonal prismatic pieces of wood, the grain of which was placed vertically. The blocks have been kept together in various ways, some by mere position, others by wooden pegs, strong iron wire, &c. The great disadvantage of wooden pavement is that it becomes slippery in wet weather. Attempts have been made to remedy this defect, by raising those in the centre above the level of the lateral ones, or grooving the surfaces of the blocks. Another objection to wooden pavement is the difficulty of laying a firm and durable foundation. The retention of water by the spaces left between the blocks and in the pores of the wood itself, whereby an atmosphere of moisture is continually preserved, has also been considered as likely to predispose to certain diseases. Whether the latter is true or not, the short duration of their adoption has hardly afforded sufficient opportunities of deciding. The checking of the vibrations communicated from vehicles constantly running in the streets, renders the wooden pavement of extreme value; its durability has also been stated on good authority to exceed that of stone, and its expense to be less. In these particulars however it has not answered expectation; and from the immense number of horses which are daily thrown down, from the want of resisting points on its surface, its use will probably be abanbetween the civilization of the fine arts and that of the useful arts, in their influences on social well-being, that Berlin as yet has not advanced so far in the enjoyments and comforts of life, in the civilization of the useful arts, as to have water conveyed in pipes into its city and into its houses. Three hundred thousand people have taste enough to be in die-away ecstasies at the singing of Madame Pasta, or the dancing of Taglioni, and have not taste enough to appreciate or feel the want of a supply of water in their kitchens, sculleries, drains, sewers, and water-closets. The civilization of an English village is, after all, more real civilization than that of Paris or Berlin."]

doned; and in several of the large thoroughfares where it had been adopted it is now being replaced by stone.

A very valuable material for the formation of foot-pavements has been found and patented in asphalte. That which has been most used for this purpose is the native asphalte from Seyssel; it is mixed with a small quantity of native bitumen and sand. In preparing it, 93 parts of native asphalte are reduced to powder and seven of bitumen; these are melted together and fine gravel or sand stirred in the mixture. It is then spread upon a concrete foundation in layers about an inch in thickness. Its elasticity renders it exceedingly durable. Various compositions have been substituted for this mixture, but we believe none have been found to answer so well. The application of bituminous substances to carriage-pavements has been almost exclusively limited to court-yards, but there is very good evidence of its applicability to public thoroughfares, in a piece of pavement, about 150 feet in length by 10 feet in width, laid down in 1838 at Whitehall, as a sample of Messrs. Claridge's patent. It still remains in perfect condition. The principal objection to the general adoption of asphaltic pavement in the streets of London, appears to be the difficulty of raising and relaying it, a process so constantly required to reach the innumerable gas and water-pipes beneath.

Pavements have been laid down, especially in court-yards and stables, one of the principal constituents of which is caoutchouc.]

COLLECTIONS OF NATURAL CURIOSITIES.

IF it be true that the written accounts which those who had recovered from sickness caused to be drawn out of their cure, their disorder, and the medicines employed to remove it, and to be hung up in the temples, particularly that of Esculapius, were the first collections of medical observations1, as seems to

1 Fragments of such inscriptions have been collected by Mercurialis in his work De Arte Gymnastica, lib. i. cap. 1.

appear by the testimony of Hippocrates, who did not disdain to make use of them in order to acquire information1; we have every reason to conjecture, that the rare animals, plants and minerals, generally preserved in the temples also, were the first collections of natural curiosities, and that they may have contributed as much to promote the knowledge of natural history, as those tablets to improve the art of medicine. Natural objects of uncommon size or beauty, and other rare productions, on which nature seemed to have exerted her utmost power, were in the earliest periods consecrated to the gods. They were conveyed to the temples, where their value became still enhanced by the sacredness and antiquity of the place; where they continued more and more to excite respect and awaken curiosity, and where they were preserved as memorials to the latest generations, with the same reverence as the other furniture of these buildings. In the course of time these natural curiosities dedicated to the gods became so numerous, that they formed collections which may be called large for those periods, and for the infant state in which natural history then was.

When Hanno returned from his distant voyages, he brought with him to Carthage two skins of the hairy women whom he found on the Gorgades islands, and deposited them as a memorial in the temple of Juno, where they continued till the destruction of the city. The horns of a Scythian animal, in which the Stygian water that destroyed every other vessel could be contained, were sent by Alexander as a curiosity to the temple of Delphi, where they were suspended, with an inscription, which has been preserved by Ælian*. The monstrous horns of the wild bulls which had occasioned so much devastation in Macedonia, were by order of king Philip hung up in the temple of Hercules. The unnaturally formed shoulder-bones of Pelops were deposited in the temple of Elis 5. The horns of the so-called Indian ants were shown in the temple of Hercules at Erythræ; and the crocodile found in attempting to discover the sources of the Nile was preserved in the temple of Isis at Cæsarea7. A large piece of the root of the 2 Plin. lib. xii. cap. 2. 4 Hist. Anim. lib. x. cap. 40. 6 Plin. lib. xi. cap. 31.

1 Plin. lib. xxix. cap. 1. Strabo, lib. xiv.

3 Plin. lib. vi. cap. 31.

5 Plin. lib. xxviii. cap. 4.

7Plin. lib. v. cap.9. This crocodile was still remaining in the author's time.

cinnamon-tree was kept in a golden vessel in one of the temples at Rome, where it was examined by Pliny1. The skin of that monster which the Roman army in Africa attacked and destroyed, and which probably was a crocodile, an animal common in that country, but never seen by the Romans before the Punic war, was by Regulus sent to Rome, and hung up in one of the temples, where it remained till the time of the Numantine war2. In the temple of Juno, in the island of Melita, there were a pair of elephant's teeth of extraordinary size, which were carried away by Masinissa's admiral, and transmitted to that prince, who, though he set a high value upon them, sent them back again because he heard they had been taken from a temples. The head of a basilisc was exhibited in one of the temples of Diana1; and the bones of that sea-monster, probably a whale, to which Andromeda was exposed, were preserved at Joppa, and afterwards brought to Rome. In the time of Pausanias, the head of the celebrated Calydonian boar was shown in one of the temples of Greece; but it was then destitute of bristles, and had suffered considerably by the hand of time. The monstrous tusks of this animal were brought to Rome, after the defeat of Antony, by the emperor Augustus, who caused them to be suspended in the temple of Bacchus. Apollonius tells us, that he saw in India some of those nuts which in Greece were preserved in the temples as curiosities".

It is certain, however, that all these articles, though preserved in the temples of the ancients as rarities or memorials of remarkable events, or as objects calculated to silence unbelief, were not properly kept there for the purpose to which our collections of natural curiosities are applied; but at the same time it must be allowed that they might be of as much utility to naturalists, as the tablets, in which patients who had recovered thanked the gods for their cures, were to physicians.

1 Lib. xii. cap. 19.

2 Plin. lib. viii. cap. 12. Valer. Max. lib. i. cap. 8. Orosius, lib. iv. cap. 8. Jul. Obsequens de prodigiis, cap. 29. Hujus serpentis maxillæ usque ad Numantinum bellum in publico pependisse dicuntur. May not this animal have been the Boa constrictor? 3 Cicero in Verrem, iv. cap. 4 Scaliger De Subtilit. lib. xv. exercit. 246. 5 Plin. lib. ix. cap. 5, and v. 13. 31. Strabo, lib. xvi. 6 Pausanias, in Arcadicis, cap. 46 and 47. 7 Philostrat. in Vita Apollon. lib. iii. cap. 5. I conjecture that these nuts were cocoa-nuts.

46.

Valer. Max. lib. i.

1

We are told by Suetonius, that the emperor Augustus had in his palace a collection of natural curiosities'. I, however, do not remember that any of the ancient naturalists make mention of their own private collections; though it is well known that Alexander gave orders to all huntsmen, birdcatchers, fishermen and others, to send to Aristotle whatever animals they could procure2; and although Pliny was accustomed to make observations on such as he had an opportunity of seeing. No doubt can be entertained that a collection of natural curiosities was formed by Apuleius, who, next to Aristotle and his scholar Theophrastus, certainly examined natural objects with the greatest ardour and judgement; who caused animals of every kind, and particularly fish, to be brought to him either dead or alive, in order to describe their external and internal parts, their number and situation, and to determine their characteristic peculiarities, and assign names to them; who undertook distant journeys to become acquainted with the secrets of nature; and who on the Getulian mountains collected petrifactions, which he considered as the effects of Deucalion's flood. It is much to be lamented that the zoological works of this learned and ingenious man have been lost.

The principal cause why collections of natural curiosities were scarce in ancient times, must have been the ignorance of naturalists in regard to the proper means of preserving such bodies as soon spoil or corrupt. Some methods were indeed known and practised, but they were all defective and inferior to that by spirit of wine, which prevents putrefaction, and which by its perfect transparency permits objects covered by it to be at all times viewed and examined. These methods were the same as those employed to preserve provisions, or the bodies of great men deceased. They were put into salt brine or honey, or were covered over with wax.

It appears that in the earliest periods bodies were preserved from corruption by means of salt3, and that this practice was long continued. We are told that Pharnaces caused the body

2 Plin. lib. viii. cap. 16.

1 Vita Augusti, c. 72. 3 Plin. lib. xxxi. cap. 9. Isidorus Origin. lib. xvi. cap. 2. Nitre also was employed for the like purpose. Plin. lib. xxxi. cap. 10. Herodot. lib. ii. Sextus Empiricus in Pyrrhon. Hypotypos. cap. 24. The last author ascribes this custom to the Persians in particular.