No. 112 of the Hartwell General Catalogue is a fragment of Cipollino marble from Leptis Magna, which I lodged in the museum as a memorial of my African expedition; some of the larger fruits of which are to be seen at Virginia Water, in Windsor Park. The profusion of grey and red granites, porphyries, giall'anticos, and expensive marbles of every description, lavished in embellishing such a civitas Romanorum-so remote from the quarries that yielded them-is truly a matter for astonishment; the most noted incident in the history of that city being, perhaps, the Emperor Septimius Severus having been born there. It was therefore interesting that among the ancient coins exhumed or accidentally found by the Arabs in my employ, there was a fine one of this fortunate, vigorous, crafty, and most vindictive ruler, bearing sufficient data to prove its having been struck A.D. 195, and therefore before he was sole master of the empire. It is now in Dr. Lee's valuable cabinet, and is thus described in my Catalogue of Roman Large-brass Medals," page 185:

66

CCCXXX.

Obverse.-L. SEPT. SEV. PERT. AVG. IMP. V. (Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax, Augustus, Imperator quintum). The laurelled head of the Emperor, characterised as above. This medal has a coat of bright green patina, forming the "arugo nobilis;" it was found among the ruins of Leptis Magna in 1816.

Reverse.-P. M. TR. P. III. COS. II. P. P. (Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate tertium, Consul iterum, Pater Patria). In the field, s. c. (Senatus Consultu). The figure of Minerva, with the spear, the parma or little round shield, and helmet, of the celebrated palladium, fabled to have been brought from Troy, and never exposed to public view. She stands exactly as on the web woven in competition with Arachne, according to the poet's description, and was allegorical of Providentia or Prudence.

Another large-brass coin in the same cabinet-No. CCXXXII.-also picked up in

North Africa, is a fine Eternitas of that beautiful profligate, Faustina the elder it was brought to me by a wandering Arab, in the Wadi Zemzen, near Ghirrza, in 1817, among lots of trash.

During the course of my explorations of Leptis and its neighbourhood, we were occasionally visited by Arab sheikhs of the Orfilli and Tuarick tribes, from the interior. They evinced much curiosity as to what the digging could be for; because, though some of the recovered sculptures were displayed to them, they did not scruple to assert that I must be hunting for money-treasure, seeing that, if we only wanted images, there were plenty to be had above-ground. Now these swarthy guests mostly confirmed a statement made to me at Tripoli by the notorious Mukni, Sultan of Fezzan, when Lyon and Ritchie were at Mourzûk; namely, that at a certain inland place called Ghirrza there were hundreds of perfect men, women, and children,* with camels, horses, and other animals, all turned into stone! My consequent vision of Nardoun and the petrified city of the Arabian Nights, my excited hopes, and then bitter disappointment on arriving at the mystic spot, are all narrated in the appendix to my "Mediterranean," so that it only remains to say a few words in reference to this tale.

It is about 30 years ago that I deposited a flat and rudely-carved human face, by some gone-by Ghirrza sculptor, in the Hartwell Museum, where it appeared as No. 350 of the Catalogue. The material constituting this relic was a slightly calcareous but compactly indurated sandstone, of a pale buff colour, which led to its being mistaken in a certain quarter for marble. Wishing to refer to it in March 1862, the fragment was missed from its place; and, after instituting a thorough but fruitless search, the following steps were pursued for repairing the loss in the first place I wrote to the Council of the Royal United Service Institution, referring to my having presented their museum with two specimens of similar sculpture from Ghirrza, one of which

* A Frank in Tripoli, who was supposed to be a very knowing kind of a witness, assured Colonel Warrington that there were Roman soldiers at Ghirrza, carrying their muskets on their shoulders-“Soldati Romani, co'i schioppi sulle spalle!"

Such were the men and such the horses, which, notwithstanding their diminutive dimensions and despicable execution, inspired the unfeigned admiration and respect of the Janissaries who accompanied me, as mentioned in my official report of that journey. (See "Mediterranean," page 484.)

The close coherence of this sandstone led to a rigorous scrutiny of its structure, which was followed by abundant evidence in proof of its being-with all the edifices, and the whole district where the material was quarried-a teeming universe of vitality! Still, not to leap at such a conclusion too hastily, I chipped a little slice from the horseman's back, and forwarded it to that intelligent microscopist the Rev. J. B. Reade, to be duly experimented on the following is extracted from that gentleman's satisfactory reply of the 9th of December, 1862, from Ellesborough Rectory:

The fragment of ancient sculpture from the north shore of Africa which you sent for examination is about 14 inch in length, an inch in breadth, andths of an inch in thickness. Its weight is 48 grains, and it consists chemically of carbonate of lime with about two per cent. of silica. When the carbonate is wholly dissolved in hydrochloric acid the silicious laminæ are obtained in great purity, and, under polarized light, they exhibit brilliant colours of every variety of tint. If the action of the acid be continued only just long enough to soften the mass, and to facilitate disintegration, upon slight pressure the whole structural arrangement becomes beautifully apparent, and leads at once to the conclusion that the fragment under examination is a small portion of coralline limestone. It is much less dense than the tubipore marbles of Derbyshire, which are susceptible of a good polish; but it is sufficiently hard and compact either for buildings or sculpture. A cursory microscopic examination shows that its general structure is tubular and coralline, though the small tubes and their orifices are partially concealed by innumerable minute crystals of carbonate of lime. When these crystals are removed by the action of dilute acid the tubes themselves are well displayed, and appear in relief on the surface. The binocular microscope with its striking stereoscopic effects here comes into play, and shows in its true character the imperishable masonry of the frail and ephemeral architects. By breaking up the mass and examining the fragments we find perfect spines with their attachments, tubes externally grooved and dotted, and when the tubes are open longitudinally the interior coralline septa are very apparent. The little fragment is therefore a silent record of coral life and enjoyment in an age separated from our own by an interval which we may think about, but cannot measure. All we know is, that the most magnificent African mausoleum of " the builder Man" is but a mere atom of the mausoleum of the "builder Worm."

The region around Ghirrza is, then, a wondrous marvel, resembling the

bed of 14 feet thickness in Germany recently examined by the Prussian naturalist Ehrenberg, and found to be entirely composed of the fossil remains of animalcula, 41,000,000,000 shields of which are required to fill a cubic inch; but Sir John Herschel, having favoured me with a dialogue which he has written upon ATOMS, startled all earthling sympathies still more sensitively by this exciting peroration :

For the benefit of those who discuss the subjects of Population, War, Pestilence, Famine, &c. it may be as well to mention, that the number of human beings living at the end of the hundredth generation, commencing from a single pair, doubling at each generation (say in thirty years), and allowing for each man, woman, and child an average space of four feet in height and one foot square, would form a vertical column, having for its base the whole surface of the earth and sea spread out into a plane, and for its height 3,674 times the sun's distance from the earth! The number of human strata thus piled one on the other would amount to 460,790,000,000,000.

However astounding the foregoing facts as to the minuter species of the earth must appear to unprepared contemplation, sidereal immensity is even of greater infinitude. The distances of the comparatively neighbouring planets are easy of measurement and comprehension; but, to cross the awful gulf of space between them and the nearest fixed star, hic opus est. Still more from thence to clusters and remote nebulæ, distances are conjectured over which light flying along at the rate of 190,000 miles in a single second of time, yet has to rush on for hundreds or even thousands of years before reaching us. (See Speculum Hartwellianum, page 100.) The amount of miles computed on this basis, is beyond the practical cognizance of the human intellect. Such inconceivable numeration staggers the boldest mind, and even makes the imagination quail.

How utterly fathomless and inscrutable, then, to our limited perception and understanding, are the wonderful works and designs of the omniscient and omnipresent CREATOR and PRESERVER!