German Literature. The num ber of new works published at the last Easter fair at Leipzig, amounted to 3,234, viz.:-2,852 books, including smaller works, as pamphlets; 191 novels and tales; 37 dramatic pieces, whole collections counting each for one number; 116 maps, globes, &c.; 33 musical works; 5 games. The books in foreign modern languages, exclusive of the preceding list, amount to 336. The number of publishers is stated at 401.Beck's Repertorium.

Oriental Libraries.-M. Schulz, a professor of the University of Giessen, and a member of the French Asiatic Society, left Paris in the middle of the summer of 1826, for the purpose of making a literary journey in Asia, and particularly with reference to the Persian empire. During his stay at Constantinople, he had endeavoured, but in vain, to procure exact catalogues of the manuscripts contained in the various libraries of Constantinople. The moment was not favourable. Not long before, a firman had prohibited all the booksellers of Constantinople from selling to persons not Mussulmen any Arabic, Persian, or Turkish manuscripts. The dragoman of the French embassy having requested leave for M. Schulz, to visit the mosques, to which it is known the greater portion of the libraries are attached, the Reis Effendi refused the required permission, observing, that the Porte was not in the habit of granting it, except to ambassadors alone. At last, however, the young traveller, having become acquainted with various learned persons, ulemas, and others, from whom he experienced the greatest politeness and kindness, obtained, by their

advice and recommendation, the means of entering and examining at his leisure the finest and richest of those establishments. M. Schulz thinks it difficult to say how many libraries there are in the vast circumference of Constantinople. Many are almost unknown, which are nevertheless as rich in valuable works as the most celebrated. M. Schulz names thirty libraries, most of them very considerable, which he had visited. It would have taken him many months merely to copy the catalogues of all the manuscripts in them; he therefore directed his attention solely to the historians. He met in that class with most valuable works—works of which not even the names are known in Europe, or which have been generally thought lost. Limiting his efforts in this way, he had been able to draw up a large catalogue, in the Turkish language, of the historical and geographical books in sixteen of the principal libraries of Constantinople. In the mean while M. Schulz made extracts from four historians, the names of which he believes have not yet reached Europe. These authors are, IbnAlathir, Ibn-Alasakir, Ibn-Aladim, and Ibn-Khaldoun. The first, according to M. Schulz, is one of the good Arabian historians, and enjoys a high reputation in the East. As for the works of IbnAsakir, and Ibn-Adim, on Damascus and Aleppo, "they are," he observes, "quite colossal productions. It is difficult to conceive how one single man could, not compose, but merely copy, a work so gigantic as that of Ibn-Asakir, which forms eleven folio volumes, consisting, according to a calculation far from being exaggerated, of from twenty to twenty-two

thousand folio pages, of very small writing; that is to say, of a million lines, and of from fifty to sixty millions of letters!" But the manuscript, which more particularly occupied M. Schulz during his stay at Constantinople, is the great work of Ibn-Khaldoun, which M. Hammer had said did not exist in any of the libraries of that city. M. Schulz fortunately found it in seven folio volumes.

Footsteps before the Flood.-A paper, by Mr. Grierson, was lately read before the general meeting of the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth, the subject of which was, some footsteps of quadrupeds discovered in a red sandstone quarry, about two miles to the north of the town of Lochmaben, in the county of Dumfries. Professor Buckland, having received casts of some of the most distinct impressions, together with a fragment of the sandstone itself, expressed his full conviction (though the fact was at variance with his general opinions respecting the geological formation), that the rock, while in a soft state, had been traversed by living quadrupeds. The dip of the strata in the quarry is towards the west, and at an angle of about thirty-five degrees. On the eastern side, therefore, it is the upper surface of the strata that presents itself; and of this there is a great lateral extent. The upper edge of the strata, the face of which is there exposed, reaches within about fifteen feet of the surface of the ground. From this upper boundary down to the line where they disappear under the rubbish, which (since the working has been carried on chiefly on the opposite side of the quarry) has accumulated at their base, there are fully fifteen feet of

their surface distinctly exhibited, and that for a range of not less than between forty and fifty yards. On the range of this acclivity, no less than four separate tracks were found of as many different kinds of animals. Three of these tracks were towards the south extremity of the range on the surface of the same identical layer, and two of them within two or three yards of each other. The fourth one was towards the north extremity, and probably on the same layer as the others; but owing to a quantity of earth which had rolled down, this was not fully ascertained. The simple inspection of the tracks, however, made it impossible to doubt in what manner they had been produced. The great number of the impressions in uninterrupted continuity, the regular alternations of the right and left footsteps, their equidistance from each other, the outward direction of the toes, the grazing of the foot along the surface before it was firmly planted, the deeper impression made by the toe than by the heel, and, in one instance, the sharp and well-defined marks of the three claws of the animal's foot-are circumstances which immediately arrest the attention of the observer, and force him to acknowledge that they admit of only one explanation. The impressions of one of these tracks, Dr. Buckland thinks, have been produced by the feet of a tortoise or crocodile. It will be obvious from the preceding description of the stratum containing these animal impressions, that though now lying bare and superficial as at the time when the impressions were made, it is really the one on which all the other strata of the quarry had been superimposed. One of the deepest

and most distinct impressions was found at the base of the stratum in the lower part of the quarry, perhaps sixty or seventy feet be neath the surface of the earth.

A New Star-The president of the Astronomical Society, Mr. Herschel, thinks there are good

reasons for believing that the fifth star in the trapezium in the nebula of Orion, did not exist there on the 13th of March, 1826. It appears to have been first observed by the celebrated astronomer M. Struve, on the 11th of November, in the same year.