recently broken. The immense quantity of carbonic acid, which exists in
the many provinces of lime-stone, if it was extricated and decomposed
would afford charcoal enough for fuel for ages, or for the production of
new vegetable or animal bodies. The volcanic slaggs on Mount Vesuvius
are said by M. Ferber to be changed into clay by means of the sulphur-
acid, and even pots made of clay and burnt or vitrified are said by him
to be again reducible to ductile clay by the volcanic steams. Ferber's
Travels through Italy, p. 166.]

[_Wooden wedges wound_. l. 524. It is usual in seperating large mill-
stones from the siliceous sand-rocks in some parts of Derbyshire to bore
horizontal holes under them in a circle, and fill these with pegs made
of dry wood, which gradually swell by the moisture of the earth, and in
a day or two lift up the mill-stone without breaking it.]

[_With fires and acids_. l. 534. Hannibal was said to erode his way over
the Alps by fire and vinegar. The latter is supposed to allude to the
vinegar and water which was the beverage of his army. In respect to the
former it is not improbable, but where wood was to be had in great
abundance, that fires made round limestone precipices would calcine them
to a considerable depth, the night-dews or mountain-mists would
penetrate these calcined parts and pulverize them by the force of the
steam which the generated heat would produce, the winds would disperse
this lime-powder, and thus by repeated fires a precipice of lime-stone
might be destroyed and a passage opened. It should be added, that
according to Ferber's observations, these Alps consist of lime-stone.
Letters from Italy.]


X. "Go, gentle GNOMES! resume your vernal toil,