and sinuous margins. It is pure white, calcareous and beautifully reticulated; the meshes about a line in length, oval, subequal, regular, and divided by celluliferous spaces rather wider than their own shortest diameter; the cells immersed, quincuncial, leaning, with the apertures looking upwards, a little prominent, round with a small tooth on the distal edge: they open only on the superior or inner aspect; for the under surface of the polypidom is imperforate and almost smooth. Of the polype architects very little is known; but they are said to be " very vivacious," and so industrious in their vocation, that their building rises with a rapidity which has extorted an expression of wonder from several observers. To Mr. Bean of Scarborough I again tender my thanks, for the liberality and kindness which induced him to entrust his valuable specimen of this our prettiest zoophyte to my examination. It may be regarded as a new addition to our native list; for although, in the History of Zoophytes by Ellis and Solander, it is said that "this elegant little coral is found now and then on our coast," and we find it introduced into the works of Turton and Stewart, yet the evidence appeared so slight and unsatisfactory that the Rev. Dr. Fleming has rejected it; influenced, perhaps, by the fact that the latter naturalists, at least, had confounded it with the Retépora reticulata, figured in Borlase's History of Cornwall. Mr. Bean's detection of it in very deep water at Scarborough, where it is very rare, renders its claim to denizenship indisputable; and I heartily congratulate him on his good fortune; for it is just one of those little discoveries over which the simple naturalist rejoices with feelings which amply repay him for the toil of much patient research. Berwick upon Tweed, Oct. 10. 1834. ART. VI. Some Account of the Salt of the Mountain of Gern, at As no description of that curious production of nature the mountain of Gern salt, at Cardona, in Catalonia, has ever appeared in any English work, to the best of my knowledge; and as, too, the place will not, probably, be visited again for years, owing to the bloody civil war raging in its environs; the following notes, taken down on the spot, however imperfect and faulty, may not, perhaps, be altogether devoid of interest. This hill, or mountain as it is generally called, is situated near the foot of the Pyrenees, about sixty miles from Barcelona; and is, according to the measurement of Bowles (Introduccion á la Historia Natural de España, p. 249.), from 400 ft. to 500 ft. in height, and one Spanish league, or nearly four English miles, in circumference. The depth is unknown, as well as the nature of the rocks on which it rests, but the formation of the surrounding country is red sandstone and red marl. The whole hill is of the purest solid salt, with the exception of a few mounds of earth scattered about the base and sides, on which I collected from twenty to thirty species of plants; but, from my utter ignorance of botany, I could not write down their names, and as I was unable to procure any thing to dry them with, in the wretched dirty little town of Cardona, they withered up, and I threw them away as useless, the next day, on my road to Cervera. The prevailing colour of the salt, from the foot to the summit of the hill, is of an icy-coloured white; in some places, however, is seen a variety of snowy white, as well as patches of red, green, black, and blue, which, decked out, as they appear to be, in all the colours of the rainbow, fluted at the sides, and ending in peaks, present, when the sun shines, one of the most beautiful sights imaginable. All these varieties, when broken with a hammer, and ground down into powder, become of the same colour, and have the same delicious flavour as the white; next to which the red or rose-coloured is the most common: it is cut up into slabs and used as a most efficacious remedy against rheumatism, cramps, and other pains in the body and limbs. When I visited these saltworks last November, the workmen were busily employed in cutting these slabs (ladrillos, as they call them; 1 ft. long, 4 in. wide, and in. thick), of which 60,000 had already been sent to Seville as a remedy against the cholera morbus. They are well soaked in brandy, the administrador of the Salinas informed me, heated as hot as the patient can bear them, and then applied to the feet. The red variety also is chiefly employed in the various ornaments, crosses, rosaries, candlesticks, &c., &c., which are manufactured by hand, in the most elegant manner, by a carpenter of Cardona. Some of these ornaments I sent to England from Tarragona, and am happy in having it in my power to contradict the prevalent notion, that, though in Spain they are as hard and durable as the vases, &c., made of Derbyshire spar in England, on arriving in this country they immediately melt, owing to the humidity of the climate. A temple, and a pair of candlesticks, have been in England since January; and, on my opening the case containing them, last week, I found that, though they had rather a moist feel, they exhibited no signs of decay, and I hope and trust they will long remain in a sound and perfect state among the other curiosities of my collection. A river, or what, like most Spanish rivers, would be termed in England a trout stream, flows along about a stone's throw from the salt hill, into which trickles a small streamlet, whether produced by the dissolving of the salt, or originating in some spring near, I could not discover. I tasted the water near its entrance into, and at several places lower down, the river, but could not discover any thing brackish or unpleasant in it. During the heavy rains, however, which occasionally fall in Catalonia, rendering the high roads, which, as in most parts of Spain, are at other times excellent, more like ploughed fields than thoroughfares, an immense quantity of salt is, the administrador informed me, washed down into the Cardonero, and the fish are destroyed for leagues. The salt, however, must afterwards evaporate [?], as no deposit can be made of it in the bed of the river, judging from, as I have before observed, the perfectly fresh taste of the water. Bowles, according to Patrin (Histoire Naturelle des Minéraux, v. 370.), states that the sal-gemma of Cardona has the property of decomposing nitre: a kind of aquafortis is made out of it, and the jewellers of Madrid, who commonly make use of it, assert that it does not attack gold; "une observation," remarks Patrin, " qui seroit fort singulière si elle seroit confirmée. Il seroit à désirer qu'un chimiste voulût bien vérifier ce fait." In order, therefore, that this fact may be verified by experiment, I enclose a specimen of the rosecoloured variety, and also one of the salt in its purest, or rather, I should say (for it is all pure), its most powerful state, which, as you will observe, is transparent, and in many re spects closely resembles ice, in order that it may be analysed by some competent chemist. [We purpose to send the specimens, as soon as we have a printed copy of our correspondent's communication ready to be sent with them, to some friend versed in chemical analysis, whose report upon the salts we hope to give in a future Number.] Notwithstanding the immense quantity of salt which might be drawn from these works, sufficient for the supply, not only of all Spain, but, I might perhaps say, the whole of Europe, such are the absurd regulations prevailing in every branch of industry in that lovely but unfortunate country, that the sale of it is confined to a circle of about seven leagues, including the large manufacturing town of Manresa: beyond which it is contraband. The surrounding country, though patches of the most beautiful woodland occasionally occur, has, for the most part, a sad, dreary, desolate look: for miles and miles, with the exception of here and there a train of asses or mules laden with sacks containing salt, and the whirr of a covey of red-legged partridges started up from their heathy roost, not a sound is heard, not a living creature is seen. The rugged barren nature of the country, indeed, joined to the fierce vindictive character of its inhabitants, had the effect of scaring the French off during the Peninsular war; and the castle of Cardona, which, though situated on an eminence, and strongly fortified, is by no means impregnable, was one of the very few fortresses which never, during that six years' bloody warfare, received a French garrison within its walls. It was also the only fortress never taken during the war of succession, but was delivered up in 1715, after the glorious but fruitless defence of Barcelona by the Catalans, against the united forces of France and Spain: a defence unparalleled in the annals of history, save by those of Gerona and Saragossa in later times. There are thirty-five labourers employed on these saltworks, who receive five rials, about 13d. a day; and twenty guards keep watch night and day in order to prevent any of the salt being stolen: such is the wretched character for robbery and murder borne by the surrounding inhabitants; a character, indeed, which seems vindictive in the extreme. Nowhere, in any of my rides in Spain, did I meet with crosses, those Spanish signs of blood and vengeance, in such numbers as on the by bridle-road from Cardona to Cervera. The salt mountain formerly belonged to the Duke of Medina-Celi, and the manner by which it fell into royal hands is rather amusing, and was told me with great glee by my host at Cardona. Charles III., the only wise man in his family, as the Spaniards call him, hearing of the great value of the mountain, determined to get it into his own clutches; and for that purpose observed carelessly one day to the Duke of Medina-Celi, that he understood his salt possessions brought him in a large annual rent. "A mere trifle," replied the duke, who, like all Spaniards, wished to conceal his wealth, naming about one third of the actual amount. "If that is the case,' rejoined the king, "I will give you double, and make as much more out of them as I can." To hear, in those despotic times, was to obey; and thus the Duke of Medina-Celi lost one of the fairest possessions of his powerful house: for, as may easily be imagined, from the proverbial good faith of a Bourbon, after the death of that king, the promised tribute was never paid, and they now belong entirely to the queen regent, who farms them out to a merchant at Barcelona. "Spain," said Bowles (an Englishman by birth, but a Spaniard by adoption, who was employed by Charles III. to inspect and report on the then state of the mines), sixty or seventy years ago," is, to the naturalist, a virgin land" (una tierra virgen); and such-in spite of her beautiful marbles, unrivalled by those of any country upon earth; her noble forests; her numerous mines; and splendidly plumaged-birds (among them the roller; the bee-eater, which I met with in May last, as common as swallows, along the banks of the Tagus, between Toledo and Aranjuez; the azure-winged jay, &c.), vying with the most magnificent species of the torrid zone, in brilliancy and variety of colouring-she has since continued, and appears still destined to remain. No one, indeed, in their senses, would naturalise in a country, where, in addition to the chance of being stripped naked, soundly bastinadoed, and left tied to a tree all night (for such is the mode of punishment inflicted by those worthies, Spanish robbers, on any person who has the misfortune to fall into their clutches, and whose purse does not appear to them sufficiently well lined with dollars), a naturalist is subject to such barbarous treatment as I received, though my passport was perfectly regular, in January last, in the Catalonian Pyrenees. For four nights I slept in dungeons on straw; one of these nights with irons of the most barbarous description on my feet; for two days and a half I was marched through the country bound, like a robber or a cut-throat, hand and foot to my horse with cords; in company with my guide, who was treated in a similar manner; under a guard of twelve armed men, to Talarn, the capital of |