The Sun.
London, England, 1821-01-05 00:00:00

LITERARY and SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE

[FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.]
(No. II(.)

ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.-Some new discove-
ries of great interest and importance have been
made in the Vatican Library by M.1\1:11, the
'principal librarian.
In a Greeklntlimpsete manuscript (where the
first writing has been effaced, in order to make
the parchment serve a second time), containing
the Harangues of the orator Aristides, the learn-
ed librarian has succeeded in discovering a part
of the Extracts of Constantine Porphyro-genetus,
belonging to the Chapters of Sentences, Ha-
rangues, Succession of Kings, Inventors -of
Things, and Sententious Answers. As the By-
zantine Prince had made extracts from a multi-
tude of historical and political works, which
have been long lost to the world, this discovery
has naturally promised an ample harvest of inte-
resting gleanings. M. Mai announces that he
has discovered parts of the lost books of Poly-
bius, Diodorus Siculus, and Dion Cassius, and
fragments of Aristotle of Ephorus, of Timeus, of•
Hyperides, and of Demetrius Phalereus. There
are also some fragments of the Byzantine writers,
such as Eunapius, Menander of Byzantium, Pris-
cus, and Petrus Protector, historic authors of a
very interesting period. Among the fragments of
Polybius, there is one of the 39th books, in which
he announces, that the 40th and last was to treat
of Chronology.
In another palimpsete, M. Mai has found a
political treatise posterior to the time of Cicero,
in which that orator is quoted with many other
Greek and Latin authors.

M. Mai has further discovered several speeches
of Aristides, seven books of the physician'Ori-
barius, which will be of much value to the phy-
sical sciences, fragments of Philo, a copy of

Verines, &c.
It has been also just announced, that in the
.MSS. of Herculaneum, lately unrolled at Naples,
some treatises of Epicurus have been discovered,
of more importance than any of which we are yet
in possession. In one of these, MSS. there are
quotations from a treatise on Political Economy,
by Aristotle, very different from the work which
We possess under that title.
M. Hase, Professor of Modern Greek to the
School of Oriental Languages at Paris, who haa
just returned from a literary tour through Italy,
has further increased the number of these disco-
veries. He has found in the Ambrosia!' library
at Milan a complete MS. of a Byzantine histo-
rian, George Acropolito, of whom we have hi-
the: to had nothing but an extract.
The Abbe Amadeus Peyran, Professor of
Oriental Languages in the University of Turin,
has discovered some fragments of Cicero, in a
manuscript from the monastery of St. Columban
de Rabbi°, a town on the Trebia, in the domi-
nions of the King of Sardinia. This MS. pre-
sents important new readings of Orations already
known, and confirms the identity of several texts
that have been tortured by indiscreet critics. It
contains also fragments of the Orations Pra,
ScaurO , Pro ill. Tullio, In Clodium—orations un-
fortunately lost.
A manuscript of. Eutropius's Roman History,
supposed to have been carried from Rome to.
Bamberg by the Emreror Henry, the founder of
the bishopric of that place, has been found in the
Royal library there by Mr. Jacks, the librarian.
It is mere complete than-any of the printed edi-
tions, and will probably furnish means for cor-
recting many. false readings.
ORGANIC 11E5IA1:CA.—The Calcutta' Mirror of
the 23d March last, contains a letter 'from Dr.
TYTLEIt, announcing that in an expedition to
Kallingar, he picked up a fossil oyster shell on
the .summit of a high hill, above the village of
Bheeamow, in union with granite and basalt rocks.
" This proves that,these :kills were formerly all
under water." Or: TYTLER has met with some-
thing still more wonderful. " In the bed of a
river near Russur, I also found," says he," the
fossil remains of the first joint of a human finger.
It is evidently the first.phalanx of a finger, and I
think the first finger of the right hand." The bed
of a river might be considered rather a doubtful
place for such a fossil ; but we imagine no doubts
will remain respecting the real value of this sin-
gular discovery, when we add what the writer
further says respecting this bone :—" It is more
than twice the size of the joint of an ordinary
man ; ergo, the person it belonged to must have
been at least twelve feet high." These twb sin-
gular curiosities he was-about to dispatch to the
Asiatic Society.
DIVING Mactmaa.—Some time ago it was an-
nounced in most of the Papers on the Continent,
that Mr. FRANCIS FARKAS, an Hungarian, had
invented.a machine; named a Dolphin, by means
of which a person may dive to the bottom of the
deepest rivers, lakes, and the sea. The machine
enables the diver to walk at his ease on the bot-
tom, to work his hands and feet with freedom,
and mount at pleasure, without any assistance,
to the surface, or remain stationary in the middle
of the water, or in any depth, and . continue
as long as he may wish, without the least
interruption or effort. The object of this use-
ful invention is to give prompt and effec-
tual relief to vessels wrecked, to collect from
the bottom, with greater facility, pearls, coral,
and amber, and to augment our fine collec-
tion of shells ; also to raise from the cavities of
the sea, treasures which perhaps are to us at pre-
sent unknown. An experiment was made' with
this machine at Vienna on the Ist of October last;
in the Military Swimming School at the Prater.
Count JOSEPH ESTERHAZ Y de GALANTHY, COUlli
FERGAS de..GIIYMES, (Court Secretary), the act.
ing Chamberlain Neasmas SanGon, several learn.
,Englishmen, and many . persons of distinction,
were present. The servant of the inventor plung-
ed with the dolphin in 24 feet water, and walked
upon the bottom over the whole square of
the swimming school. To prove that there could
be no want of light the inventor sent down a
lanthorn, and when it was taken up again the light
was still burning. - After the man had remained
one hour under water he returned without the