Colossal bones, that, once before our flood,
Were clothed in flesh, and warm'd with living blood;
And tiny creatures, crumbling into dust,
All mix'd and kneaded in one common crust!
Here tempting shells exhibit mineral stores,
Of crystals bright and scintillating ores!
Of milky _mesotypes_, the various sorts,
The _blister'd silex_ and the _smoke-stain'd quartz_;
Thy _phosphates lead!_ bedeck'd with _needles green_,
Of _Elbas speculum_ the _steely sheen_,
Of _copper ores_, the poison'd "_greens_" and "_blues_,"
Dark _Bismuth's cubes_, and Chromium's _changing_ hues.

Here, too, (emblematical of our own position with respect to Ireland,)
we see _silver alloyed with lead_. In the "repeal of such union," where
the _silver_ has every thing to _gain_ and the _lead_ every thing to
_lose_, it is remarkable at what a _very dull heat_ ('tis scarcely
superior to that by which O'Connell manages to inflame Ireland) the
_baser metal_ melts, and would forsake the other, by its incorporation
with which it derives so large a portion of its intrinsic value,
whatever that may be!

Here, too, we pass in frequent review a vast series of casts from the
antique; they come from Clermont, and are produced by the dripping of
water, strongly impregnated with the carbonate of lime, on moulds placed
under it with this view. Some of these impressions were coarse and
rusty, owing to the presence of iron in the water; but where the
necessary precautions had been taken to precipitate this, the casts came
out with a highly polished surface, together with a sharpness of outline
and a precision of detail, that left no room for competition to
_Odellis_, else unrivalled Roman casts, which, confronted with these,
look like impressions of impressions derived through a hundred
successive stages; add, too, that these have the _solid_ advantage over
the others of being in marble in place of washed sulphur.

Thus much concerning _us_ and _our_ pastimes, from which it will have
appeared that the _gentlemen_ at Vichy pass half the day in _nothings_,
the other half _in nothing_. As to the ladies, who lead the same kind of
out doors life with us, and only don't smoke or play billiards, we see
and note as much of their occupations or listlessness as we list.

In unzoned robes, and loosest dishabille,
They show the world they've nothing to conceal!
But sit abstracted in their own _George Sand_,
And dote on Vice in sentiment so bla