Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

The fountain of St. Allyre, which runs to Clermont Ferrand, in the department of Puy-de-Dome, is justly ranked among the wonders of nature in France, on account of the petrifying property of its waters. The various calcareous matters, held in solution by the water penetrates so perfectly through bodies submitted to its action that they become identified with them, are mingled deeply with their substance, and assume their forms; thus by their concretion, they change into solid masses, into true stones, vegetables, flowers, branches of limbs and entire animals.

This phenomenon of nature, which in some measure calls to mind the fable of the metamorphoses, has given the idea to an inhabitant of the country, to carry to Paris a number of these singular productions, and to form a cabinet of curiosities in the Croix de-petits-Champs; No. 21. You see there a fox running after a fowl, which reminds you of the dog in the fable which reaches but never seizes the hare that does not fly from it-a spaniel always ready to follow his master birds that are trembling with fear, so that you might think they were petrified by fright, &c. All the objects which the cabinet contains, seem as if fixed by the head of Medusa. So much does the image of life remain deeply imprinted on the victims of death, that some preserving power prevents you from noticing the seal of destruction.

The proprietors of this cabinet have had the honor of presenting to the King a petrified bed. They show also a picture representing the magic fountain and its landscapes, and the visit which the Duke d'Angouleme had the curiosity to make to it.--One of the most astonishing works of this fountain is, to have produced by successive concretions, a natural bridge, which is extremely picturesque, the arch of which is decorated with stalactites. This bridge makes one of the beauties of the picture.

[Journal de Commerce.]