But In The Natural
Curiosities Of The Environs Of Clermont There Is A Great Deal To Interest
The Botanist And
Mineralogist and above all there is a remarkable
petrifying well, very near the town, where by leaving pieces of wood,
Shell-fish and other articles exposed to the dropping of the water, they
become petrified in a short time. This water has the same effect on dead
animals and rapidly converts them into stone. I have myself seen a small
basket filled with plovers' eggs become in eight days a perfect
petrifaction.
CLERMONT, April 2d.
I am arrived here at rather a dull season: the Carnaval is just over and
all the young ladies are taking to their Livres d'Heures to atone for any
levity or indiscretion they may have been guilty of during the hey day of
the Carnaval. The Wardle family have a very pleasant acquaintance here,
chiefly among the liberaux, or moderate royalists, but there are some
most inveterate Ultras in this city, who keep aloof from any person of
liberal principles, as they would of a person infected with the plague. The
noblesse of Auvergne have the reputation of being in general ignorant and
despotic. There is but little agrement or instruction to be derived from
their society, for they have not the ideas of the age. In general the
nobles of Auvergne, tho' great sticklers for feudality and for their
privileges, and tho' they disliked the Revolution, had the good sense not
to emigrate.
There is a Swiss regiment of two battalions quartered here.
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