The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 268, August 11, 1827 · Chapter 11Arts and Sciences
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A very valuable musical manuscript, by Guillaume de Machault, who was valet de chambre to Phillippe-le-Bel, in 1307, has been discovered in the royal library at Paris. It contains several French and Latin anthems, ballads, &c.; and concludes with a mass, which is supposed to have been sung at the coronation of Charles V., in 1364; and which proves, at that time they were acquainted with the art of composition in four parts.
M. Cuvier lately read a short paper to the French academy on the species of fish called pogonias, in which he particularly adverted to the noise by which they make themselves heard, even under water. However difficult the explanation of this phenomenon, there can be no doubt of its existence; the evidence of it adduced by M. Cuvier being perfectly satisfactory. The silurus, a large and ravenous fish, which abounds in the Danube, gives daily proof of it.
A treatise on the great geological question, whether the continents now inhabited, have or have not been repeatedly submerged in the sea, has lately been read to the Académie des Sciences, by M. Constant Prevost. M. Prevost maintains, contrary to the generally received opinion, that there has been but one great inundation of the earth; and that the various remains of plants, animals, &c., which have given rise to the supposition of successive inundations, have been floated to the places in which they are occasionally found.