Notes

Abstract

A NUMBER of highly interesting excursions has been arranged in connection with the meeting of the French Association at Clermont. One day will be devoted to a visit to the argentiferous lead-mines of Pontgibaud, the lavas of Volvic, the town of Riom. There will be a second excursion to Issoire, “celebrated for its college and its caldrons,” wrote Voltaire; there will be a visit to the grottoes of Sonas on the same day, There may also be a third excursion to Thiers, the cutlery and paper manufactures of which are of interest. A last excursion, consisting of a visit to the thermal stations of Mont-Dore, Bour-boule, and St. Nectaire, has somewhat tried the ingenuity of the local committee, as it will be difficult to get conveyances enough to carry the members to these somewhat distant points. But no doubt, as we said last week, the great attraction of this meeting will be the inauguration of the observatory on Puy-de-Dôme, which amid many difficulties has been established by M. Alluard. From the elevated summit, 1,480 metres, may be seen the fertile Limagne, the hills of Forez, the peaks of Mont Dore, and all the chain of the extinct craters of the Dôme Mountains, which run from south to north, having Puy-de-Dôme in the centre.