whatever either to the sand on the beach or to that of the desert, and it ceases altogether with the soil which occasions it. How Signor Della Cella could have confounded it with the sand heaps thrown up on the beach we are at a loss to imagine; for these are considerably whiter than the desert sand, while the light powder in question is considerably redder. Besides, the sand-hills continue long after this substance has ceased to appear; and in the parts where they are found in the greatest masses there is not a particle of red sand to be seen. At the same time that we differ on this point with Signor Della Cella, we must also confess that his conjecture with respect to the extension of the gulf to the southward is not better founded than his remarks on the extension of the sand. For it is somewhat remarkable, that while the shape of the bottom of the gulf has been so very incorrectly laid down in modern charts as it is found to have been, the latitude which has been assigned to it by the same authorities is as near the truth as possible; and we may safely affirm that the most southern part of the Gulf of Syrtis does not approach at all nearer to the desert than it is made to do in the charts alluded to by Signor Della Cella, notwithstanding the confidence with which the Doctor maintains a contrary opinion, on the authority of his friend Captain Lautier[7]. It is somewhere at the bottom of the Syrtis[8] that we must have looked for the monuments erected to the Philæni, had they still been in existence; it appears however, as we have before mentioned, on the authority of Strabo, that they were no longer extant in the time of that geographer. But if the pillars have disappeared which marked the spot where the brothers were interred, the record of their patriotism still exists in the pages of history; and the account which has been given of this disinterested sacrifice by Sallust may not perhaps be unacceptable to the reader[9]. “At the time (says that historian) when the Carthaginians ruled over a great part of Africa, the people of Cyrene were also powerful and opulent. A sandy plain was on the frontiers of the two countries, the surface of which was uniform and unbroken, and neither mountain nor river appeared in it, by which the boundary of these kingdoms might be determined; a circumstance which occasioned many frequent and bloody wars between them. After various alternate successes and defeats, they entered into the following agreement; that certain persons deputed by each state should leave their home on an appointed day, and that the place where the parties might meet should be considered as the boundary of the kingdoms.” “Two brothers, named Philæni, were appointed on the part of Carthage, who contrived to travel faster than the deputies from Cyrene, but whether this was occasioned by accident, or the indolence of the Cyreneans, I have not been able (says the historian) to ascertain.”