they may be made companionable and intelligent. The famous Ferdinand Bertoni, being fond of dumb creatures, as we call them, took to petting a pigeon. This creature, by keeping his master company, has obtained so perfect an ear and taste for music, that no one who sees his behaviour, can doubt for a moment, of the pleasure he takes in hearing Mr Bertoni play and sing for as soon as he sits down to the instru ment, Colombo begins fhaking his wings, perches on the piano forté, and exprefses the most indubitable emotions of delight. If however, he or any one else'strike a false note, or make any kind of discord upon the keys, the dove never fails to shew evident tokens of anger and distrefs; and if teased too long, grows quite enraged, pecking the offender's legs and fingers in such a manner, as to leave nothing less doubtful than the sincerity of his resentment. Signiora Cecilia Giuliani, a scholar of Bertoni's, (who has lately received some overtures from the London theatre, will if ever fhe arrives there, bear testimony to the truth of an assertion very difficult to believe, and to which I fhould hardly myself give credit, were I not witness to it every morning that I chuse to call and confirm my own belief. A friend present protested he should feel afraid to touch the harpsichord before so nice a critic; and, though we all laughed at the afsertion, Bertoni declared he never knew the bird's judgement fail, and that he often kept him out of the room, for fear of his affronting or tormenting those who came to take musical instructions. With regard to other actions of life, I saw nothing particular in the pigeon, but his tamenefs, and strong attachment to his master.

A TABLE

OF

PRECIOUS STONES OF THE FIRST ANd second orders,

ORDER SECOND.

Clafs first.
SCHORL

HARDNESS from 17 to 10; SPECIFIC GRAVITY 3,6.

Varieties.

SIBERIAN, ruby coloured, reddish, green, brown, blue, and black. MOTHER OF EMERALD, dark green. LAPIS CRUCIFER, or the CROSS STONE. BAR Schorl. HORN BLEND, black, green, or blue.

schorl. THUMSTEIN.

SCHORL.

LAXMAN'S

Analysis.

CIANITE, blue QUADRANGULAR

CIANITE, Mag 13; Arg 67; Sil 13; Cal 2; Iron 5 *.

TRANSPARENT SCHORL, Sp Gr 3,6; Mag 1; Arg 40; Sil 48; Cal 5; Iron 5t.

BLUE OPAQUE, Sp Gr 3,6; Mag 1; Arg 27; Sil 48; Cal 5; Iron 5‡. Bar Schorl, Sp Gr 3,6; Mag 5; Arg 6,6; Sil 61,6; Cal 21,6 Iron 16; Water 3.

THUMSTEIN, Arg 29; Sil 531 Cal 9; Iron 10¶

Form.

Transparent schorl is chrystalised in polygonal prisms, generally with four, six, or nine sides; some of them are so fine as to pass for gems of the first order, especially for the emerald. In the semitransparent schorls there are likewise some of great beauty, as the ruby coloured, lately discovered in Siberia by counsellor Herman, in a bed of reddish argilla, mixed with fragments of felt spáth, quartz, and mica, on a low granite mountain. The bed of argilla is evidently produced by the decomposition of granite, which operation Herman supposes must have set at liberty the ruby schorl formerly pent up in the chinks or fifsures of the decomposed part of the mountain. The discovery is quite new, no such species being before known, as it is as hard as the first order of precious stones, the diamond excepted, takes a fine polish, and equals in colour the oriental ruby, though not in transparency.

Structure, Properties, &c.

Its structure is made up of fine cylindric columns, like needles collected into bundles or trefses, lying one on another in different directions, whilst each individual column is made up of fine plates or lamina, like the gems. It is fusible per se into a white transparent glafs, and melts imperfectly with borax when calcined, as it does with microcosmic salt and mineral alkali, into a small vitreous globe, with little spots of a white enamel colour; acids have no effect upon it, even when calcined. Lastly, it loses its colour in the fire after having first turned blue. The mother of emeralds is likewise a semitranspa

rent schorl, in the opinion of some able naturalists, although Mr Born afserts it to be a jade, we know not upon what authority; this subject is farther treated in the article jade.

The structure of the semitransparent schorls, and some of the transparent that are not so perfectly diaphanous as to conceal their texture, is obscurely sparry; but that of the opaque is either fillamentous, like asbestus, or hard and brittle like threads of glass, or it is composed of scales. Of this last kind is that called born blend, which is generally green or black, but there is a beautiful variety of it found on the mount St Gothard in Switzerland, of a fine sky blue colour covered with silver talc. Bar schorl has been found on the Carpathian mountains chrystalized in prisms. Lapis crucifer, or the cross stone, is found sometimes near Brazil in Switzerland, and there named Tauffstein, or christening stone; but oftener at Thum in Saxony, and therefore named there Thumstein. It is a schorl in form of a cross; that of Brazil consists of two hexagonal chrystals. The exact chrystalization of the other is unknown to us.

Where found.

Most countries produce schorls. Rufsia is parti cularly rich in schorls. It is even difficult to point out all the different places of the empire which produce them, but we fhall take notice of those most remarkable, particularly new discoveries. The rus by coloured schorl mentioned above, was found by Mr Herman at Sarapouliky, a village in the govern ment of Perm, ten versts from Maursiasky Slabode in

May 15. Siberia. The Siberian inspector, Mr Laxman, has lately discovered in the mountain Alpestria, on the river Sleudenka near the lake Baikal, the following new schorls. First, a green transparent schorl, of so brittle a nature as not to bear carriage without breaking into small pieces truncated; Pallas is positive in declaring this dark green schorl, a hyacinth. This last has often some of the small yellowish white garnets sticking in it described in the article Garnet, where an account will be found of the species of matrix that contains them all., Schorls are likewise found in the mountains and mines of Niselga, Krasnavolok, and Sondala, as likewise between the Onega Lake and White Sea. Black schorl is likewise found near the White Sea, and in the Altai, Ural, and Daurian mountains.

None of the transparent schorls have been found in Scotland, that I have heard of; but many varieties of the opaque kinds have been found in various places, particularly in the island of Arran, where there is a bed of greenish hornlike schorl of immense extent near the harbour of Lamlash.

Value.

Fine specimens of schorlare dear; the ruby schorl from Siberia, twenty-five to fifty rubles a ring stone; the green, when fine, from fifteen to thirty.

N. B. The high price of the ruby schorl is ow ing to its novelty and rarity; and of the green, is owing to its passing for an emerald,