when Bartholomew Diaz, or some of the early Portugueze navigators, landed first in this country. Others, however, who have seen and examined the mass, are of opinion, that it must have been placed in its present situation at a period long antecedent to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Europeans. Be that as it may, the Neptunean appearances of various parts of Southern Africa, which are particularly striking in the formation of the Table Mountain, press strongly on the recollection the beautiful observation of the Latin poet:
Vidi ego, quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus
Esse fretum. Vidi factas ex æquore terras,
Et procul a pelago conchæ jacuere marinæ,
Et vetus inventa est in montibus auchora summis."
Paracelsus, in his treatise De Meteoris, has a curious section, De Lapide e Cœlo, in which, mingled with some strange and daring errors, he hits upon the true solution of the phænomenon. Lapidum
