Chap. 12. Our petrifactions are not the products of modern art, as some persons have ventured to assert, throwing a cloud of doubts and fables over this subject. Chap. 13. Grave reasons for considering our petrifactions as the work of nature, and not of art. The absurdity of the arguments employed in the discussion of these different propositions, exceeds all belief. For example, the author, to refute the opinion of those who attribute these petrifactions to the superstition of the Pagans, demonstrates that none of these specimens in his possession are described in the decrees of the German synods, which proscribed images and sorcery. Neither can they be considered as victims offered to idols, for who ever sacrificed figured stones instead of living animals? They are not amulets which Pagan parents hung around the necks of their children, to preserve them from the charms of witchcraft, for some of them are so heavy that they would strangle the poor infant, and there is no aperture in any of them through which a chain could be passed. Finally, what renders it impossible that these stones are the remains of Paganism, is, that many of them are inscribed with Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and German characters, expressing the name of the Deity. This work, as we have stated, was suppressed when he discovered the cruel hoax that had been played upon him. The work, in its original state, is very rare, and is only known to the curious; but after the death of M. Berenger, the copies which he had retained were given to the public by a bookseller, but with a new title-page. S. SONGS OF OUR LAND. Songs of our land, ye are with us for ever, The power and the splendour of thrones pass away; But yours is the might of some far flowing river, Through Summer’s bright roses or Autumn’s decay. Ye treasure each voice of the swift passing ages, And truth, which time writeth on leaves or on sand; Ye bring us the bright thoughts of poets and sages, And keep them among us, old songs of our land. The bards may go down to the place of their slumbers, The lyre of the charmer be hushed in the grave, But far in the future the power of their numbers Shall kindle the hearts of our faithful and brave. It will waken an echo in souls deep and lonely, Like voices of reeds by the summer breeze fanned; It will call up a spirit for freedom, when only Her breathings are heard in the songs of our land.